Should Biden Push for Regime Change in Russia?

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Should Biden Push for Regime Change in Russia?
Date: October 2, 2023
Host: David Remnick
Guest: Stephen Kotkin (Historian, Senior Fellow at Hoover Institution, Stanford University)

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Episode Overview

This episode of The Political Scene features a conversation between David Remnick and historian Stephen Kotkin on the state of the war in Ukraine, the prospects for victory, the limitations and contradictions of Western strategy, and the fraught question: Should the Biden administration push for regime change in Russia? Throughout the episode, they explore the human, political, and strategic dimensions of the war, comparing it to historical precedents and discussing the impact on American and European politics.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

The State of the War in Ukraine

• Ukraine's Depleting Resources:

  • Ukraine is facing severe shortages of personnel and munitions. The average age of soldiers training outside Ukraine is now 35 or older, signifying a depletion of younger recruits.
    • Stephen Kotkin: “They're running out of 18 to 30 year olds. The average age of the Ukrainian soldiers training in Europe at the bases in Germany or the UK is 35 or older. They're running out of munitions, they're running out of anti aircraft missiles. That's a really big one too.” (02:40)

• Comparison of Losses:

  • Ukrainian casualties are massive but unreleased; Russian losses are also high, but the Kremlin shows little concern for them, shifting the moral and operational burden.
    • Kotkin: “The guy in the Kremlin doesn’t care. Ukrainian soldiers die. They live in a democracy, their leadership cares. They can’t just sacrifice their people in big numbers. The guy in the Kremlin, he doesn’t care.” (03:44)

The Counteroffensive’s Mixed Results

• Progress and Limitations

  • The West expects regular, tangible victories, paralleling stock market "quarterly numbers," despite the war’s long-haul nature.
    • Kotkin: “The Biden administration, our European partners, Ukrainians themselves, talk about how they're in it for the long haul, they're in it for the long term. And then they go to a press conference and the first question is, you know, what are the quarterlies..." (04:34)
  • There's skepticism about any clear, quick end: “Why do you think it's gonna end?” (04:34)

• Tet Offensive Parallel (Vietnam War, 1968):

  • Kotkin worries Russia could replicate a "Tet Offensive"—a surprise counterstrike that shocks the West politically and undermines support, even if it fails militarily.
    • Kotkin: “Their offensive could work… However, they could be surprised by a Russian counteroffensive, which doesn't have to succeed very much on the battlefield. It could be just like Tet… But it could send political shockwaves through Washington D.C., through European capitals, Tokyo.” (06:33)

Western Strategy: Contradictions and Credibility Gap

• Rhetoric vs. Commitment:

  • The West’s maximalist rhetoric ("everything at stake") is inconsistent with its refusal to put troops on the ground in Ukraine, creating confusion domestically and among allies.
    • Kotkin: “You can't have everything at stake existential for the world order...But it's not important enough to put American troops on the ground in Ukraine. That's our strategy. That's why Americans don't understand our strategy.” (10:09)
  • In Ukraine, the stakes are existential and maximalist: victory, justice, reparations, but these are disconnected from Western support levels.

• Aid Fatigue and Political Dynamics:

  • Domestic politics in the US and Europe (e.g., aid skepticism among Republicans, Polish election-year tensions over grain exports) jeopardize ongoing Ukrainian support.
    • Remnick: “You're starting to see many people in the Republican Party question aid to Ukraine completely, not least Donald Trump.” (16:57)
    • Kotkin: “This is not something that we're going to be able to succeed the next 20 years at $200 million a day from the US alone, as well as our European part.” (17:36)

Finding a Path Forward: Negotiations, Armistice, and Realpolitik

• Armistice as the Only Viable Endgame:

  • Kotkin argues for seeking an armistice (a Korean Peninsula model), even if it leaves significant territory with Russia, to stop the destruction and begin rebuilding Ukraine.
    • Kotkin: “We need an armistice. We need a DMZ, we need the fighting to stop. We need the 18 to 30 year old Ukrainians who are left not to die.” (13:56)

• The Crimea and Donbas Quandary:

  • Retaking Crimea poses massive demographic and legal challenges, especially with a majority Russian population and EU accession on the line.
    • Kotkin: “If you take back Crimea, what do you do with the Russians? There were 2.3 million people in Crimea...Predominantly ethnic Russian... What are you going to do? You're going to ethnically cleanse them?.. How's that going to work for your EU accession?” (15:03)

Should the West Push for Regime Change in Moscow?

• A Call for Harder Pressure:

  • Kotkin suggests the West should make Putin personally insecure—putting the threat of regime change "back on the table" could force real negotiations.
    • Kotkin: “My argument is we took regime change off the table through fear of escalation. We said we're not going to do covert operations, political stuff to threaten your regime in Moscow...that's the key to forcing an armistice.” (12:15)
    • Kotkin: “I want to grab Putin by the throat and I want to make life uncomfortable for him politically...Let them [defectors] fly out...get him to the hog [The Hague]...Let's pressure this regime. Let's push and push and push…” (19:59)

• Debate Over the Consequences:

  • Kotkin calls for an open, full debate on the risks and rewards of targeting regime change: “If you don't agree, let's at least debate that. I want a fulsome debate about that, about why we're not doing it and what might be the consequences if we do do it.” (22:56)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Logic of Western Support:

  • “You can’t have everything at stake existential for the world order... But it’s not important enough to put American troops on the ground in Ukraine. That’s our strategy. That’s why Americans don’t understand our strategy.”
    • Stephen Kotkin, 10:09

• On Long-Term Viability of Aid:

  • “This is not something that we’re going to be able to succeed the next 20 years at $200 million a day from the US alone, as well as our European part.”
    • Stephen Kotkin, 17:36

• On Pressure vs. Security Dilemma:

  • “We took regime change off the table through fear of escalation...that’s the key to forcing an armistice, to getting a winning the peace conversation rather than just winning on the battlefield. When he’s scared that his regime could go down, he’ll cut and run.”
    • Stephen Kotkin, 12:15

• On Realpolitik vs. Morality:

  • “If you can’t march on Moscow, if your partners won’t put boots on the ground to impose that peace... then what do you do in that situation? It’s not something I’m happy about, but I got to get to a Ukraine that’s rebuilding, not being bombed and destroyed.”
    • Stephen Kotkin, 15:03

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Ukraine's Human & Material Losses: (02:40 – 04:28)
• Counteroffensive’s Progress & Public Perceptions: (04:34 – 06:09)
• Tet Offensive Analogy & Political Risk: (05:21 – 07:15)
• Western Strategy Contradictions: (10:09 – 12:11)
• Regime Change Debate: (12:15 – 13:41, 19:59 – 22:56)
• Negotiated Settlements and Armistice Concepts: (13:56 – 16:57)
• Aid Fatigue & Political Risks in the West: (16:57 – 19:30)
• Global Realignment, Strategic "Victories," and Next Moves: (19:30 – 23:01)

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Conclusion

The episode offers a sobering assessment of Ukraine’s battlefield realities, the growing disconnect between Western rhetoric and resources, and the complicated geopolitics of the war. Kotkin pushes listeners — and policymakers — to consider tough trade-offs and the strategic necessity of pressuring Putin’s regime more directly, while Remnick anchors the discussion in current Western political dynamics. The prevailing tone is urgent, realistic, and at times, distinctly skeptical about long-term Western resolve unless strategies and conversations change.

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

This is the political scene and I'm David Remnick. The other week, the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelens, was in the United States, meeting at the United nations and in Washington. Now, when he was last in this country in December, Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress. He was hailed as a hero with constant standing ovations. But this time around, things were a little different. Kevin McCarthy said Congress was just too busy to assemble a joint session, too busy trying to avert a self imposed shutdown. And much of conservative Washington is now balking at the price tag of military aid to Ukraine. It's no longer a handful of Putin sympathizers on the far right. Even in Europe, Zelenskyy is now caught up in a diplomatic fight with one of his very closest allies, Poland. Since the war began, I've been speaking periodically with Stephen Kotkin. Kotkin is a historian, an expert on authoritarianism in Stalin, but he's also one of the best informed people I know on the war that's going on right now in Ukraine. Stephen Kotkin welcome back. This is our third conversation during this godforsaken war and it's a very simple question that I have. Where are we now?

[C]

After a year and a half, Ukraine is battling. The courage and the ingenuity are still there, but they're running out of people. They're running out of 18 to 30 year olds. The average age of the Ukrainian soldiers training in Europe at the bases in Germany or the UK is 35 or older. They're running out of munitions, they're running out of anti aircraft missiles. That's a really big one too. You saw that Putin bombed several Ukrainian cities. And not being able to defend the skies going forward, when Russia has an intact air force, it's an enormous challenge.

[B]

It's obvious that losses on both sides are enormous. But what do we know about specific numbers? You speak to a lot of people in governments in Europe as well as in the United States, various agencies. What do we know about the numbers?

[C]

Losses are really high, tens of thousands just during the counteroffensive alone. Ukraine does not publicly release its casualty numbers, so we don't know the exact number. But here's your problem. The guy in the Kremlin doesn't care. Ukrainian soldiers die. They live in a democracy, their leadership cares. They can't just sacrifice their people in big numbers. The guy in the Kremlin, he doesn't care. And so it's not just the numbers that are bad. It's the fact that one side can throw these bodies in cannon fodder and the other side just can't fight like that.

[B]

What's your understanding of the success or non success of the Ukrainian counteroffensive against Russia?

[C]

Yes, it's like the stock market now, everyone says they're a long term investor, they're trying to produce long term value. And then the analyst comes along and says, well, you know, did you make your quarterly numbers? The Biden administration, our European partners, Ukrainians themselves, talk about how they're in it for the long haul, they're in it for the long term. And then they go to a press conference and the first question is, you know, what are the quarterlies and how come you didn't meet your quarterly numbers? And what, why is the counteroffensive so slow and when are you gonna win this thing? And so people keep asking me how this is gonna end and I say, why do you think it's gonna end?

[B]

As a historian, what can it be compared to? When you talk about a war of that length, what kind of precedent is there for that?

[C]

I'm worried about a Tet offensive. A Tet offensive. January 68, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese mounting an offensive. Everyone was saying that the war was going well. From our point of view, we're winning. The other side doesn't really have offensive capabilities. And then, boom, lo and behold, they mount a very significant offensive. Surprise. In this lunar New year, we beat it back. Actually, on the battlefield, it's a battlefield failure. But what happens is everyone is shocked that they could do this and that they did do it. And so Uncle Walter goes on tv.

[B]

Walter Cronkite of CBS News, Uncle Walter.

[C]

Says this war is not winnable.

[D]

It seems now more certain than ever that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. But it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out then will be to negotiate not as victors, but as an honorable people who lived up to their pledge to defend democracy and did the best they could.

[C]

That was a pretty big moment. So I'm looking at the battlefield here, and I'm looking at the Ukrainians, and they're on the offensive. Their offensive could, could work. They have made some progress. And however, they could be surprised by a Russian counteroffensive, which doesn't have to succeed very much on the battlefield. It could be just like Tet, but it could send political shockwaves through Washington D.C. through European capitals, Tokyo. People could conclude that maybe this is not winnable, maybe we shouldn't do this. And let's remember Lyndon Johnson declared that he wouldn't run for reelection.

[B]

That's right. In March of 1968, LBJ, quite unexpectedly stepped down. Do you really think that that could affect the US Presidential race and Joe Biden's fate?

[C]

It could. So his numbers, when did they crater? They cratered with the Afghanistan pullout. I observed the mishandled pullout from Afghanistan hurt Joe Biden very, very significantly. I don't know the probability, but my view is if it's possible, we got to be ready for this. We have to prepare the public, we have to prepare the battlefield. So what I would be doing is I would be talking about this publicly. I would be talking about the coming Russian counteroffensive and about how Putin is going to try to improvise a Tet offensive style. Battlefield failure, potentially, but political triumph. But we're ready for it. These are the measures that we're using to counter it. I'd get out front of this and make it more difficult to have that political effect and even make it more difficult to do it at all.

[B]

Do you think a Ukrainian victory is impossible in the foreseeable future?

[C]

Nothing's impossible. Right, here's your challenge though. You take Tokmak. They're still far from it. But that's the next objective on their line of deepest penetration. It's on the road to Melitopol. That's on the road to the Sea of Azov, which is the littoral, that land bridge that connects Crimea and eastern Donbas that Putin has taken since February 2022. So you take that and then what? What's your next step?

[B]

Right.

[C]

How do you then win the peace? How do you then start rebuilding Ukraine? How do you get a Ukraine that is able to join the European Union over a period of time and transform its internal institutions as a result of the EU accession process? Where do you get the security guarantee from? So I need some type of negotiated process here. Regardless, every war ends with a negotiation. Even unconditional surrender produces a form of negotiation.

[B]

Now, President Zelenskyy was last week just in Washington to see Joe Biden and he was at the UN and he gave the kind of speeches we've grown accustomed to, where he's both thanking the west for its aid, but imploring for more and demanding constancy and the psychology that this is not just a war for Ukraine, but for the democratic West. I'm wondering if you perceived, on the other side, on the listening side, any change between now and when we last talked.

[C]

So here's your challenge. The idea is this is the international order at stake. Nothing could be bigger than this, right? This is about deterring authoritarian powers or they'll do it again. This is about deterring China from Taiwan. This is about securing the rules based order. This is about everything. There's nothing bigger than this. But we can't put American troops on the ground in Ukraine. So those two statements cannot be true at the same time. You can't have everything at stake existential for the world order, peace and prosperity. But it's not important enough to put American troops on the ground in Ukraine. That's our strategy. That's why Americans don't understand our strategy. That's why our political figures can't explain our strategy. Of course, in Kyiv they got a different view about this. For them, this is about their existence, their sovereignty, their independence as a nation, right? So from the Ukrainian point of view, they have a maximalist understanding of what the peace is. It's about justice, it's about reparations, it's about war crimes tribunals, it's about stuff that they can't impose because they can't take Moscow. It's understandable, it's completely justified from a moral point of view. But you got to live in the world that you live in on the battlefield. And so I'm arguing for bringing the rhetoric in line with the commitments. Otherwise we don't understand the strategy. Otherwise you can't support this over the long haul. If people think that you're not telling them the truth or you're not being level with them completely. Already we have now calls for putting American advisors on the ground. I just read a very interesting article in Foreign affairs yesterday about the need to send American advisors to Ukraine.

[B]

That sounds very familiar. From the early 60s or the late 50s even. Yeah.

[C]

And then people say to me, oh, well, if you don't think it's existential, if you don't think we got to do everything necessary, put the boots on the ground, start with the advisors, get to the troops. Our commitments don't match the rhetoric. And either we go for the commitments that are necessary or we bring the rhetoric more in line. My view is political pressure. The public discussion is where are the tanks? And we hem and haw and we say we can't do it. And then we send the tanks and we don't get credit, even though we sent the tanks because we hemmed and hawed. And then it's the airplanes, the F16s, and we hem and haw and finally we agree and then it's too slow. So it looks like it's our fault. My argument is we took regime change off the table through fear of escalation. We said we're not going to do covert operations, political stuff to threaten your regime in Moscow that's so much bigger than the F16s or the tanks or the long range missiles, because that's the variable, that's the key to forcing an armistice, to getting a winning the peace conversation rather than just winning on the battlefield. When he's scared that his regime could go down, he'll cut and run. And if he's not scared about his regime, he'll do the sanctions busting. He'll do everything he's doing because it's.

[B]

With impunity in terms of Western policy, in terms of American policy. What are you suggesting going forward in order to bring Putin to the point of negotiation of any kind of.

[C]

So we need an armistice. We've gone down this road before, you and I in the conversation, right? We need an armistice. We need a DMZ, we need the fighting to stop. We need the 18 to 30 year old Ukrainians who are left not to die. We need the 35 and above Ukrainians not to die. We need the Ukrainian kids going to school in Poland and Germany and elsewhere to come home and go to school in Ukrainian language and be the future of the country. We need them to invest and rebuild a new economy. We need them to start the EU accession process. We need them to get some type of security guarantee which is about not just deterring Russia, but enabling a successful society in Ukraine.

[B]

But Stephen, you're describing terms for an armistice that would leave a lot of territory in the hands of Russia. You're saying Ukraine might agree to give up, let's say, Donbas and Crimea to the invading Russians in exchange for security guarantees. Now that's an unacceptable view in Ukraine. When Ukraine became an independent nation in 1991, Crimea and Donbas were part of.

[C]

Sovereign Ukraine under international law. They are. But here's what you get. If you take back Crimea, what do you do with the Russians? There were 2.3 million people in Crimea approximately before the war. Predominantly ethnic Russian, depends how you measure. But you can get as high as 90% ethnic Russian. And so you got a big population of Russians. What are you going to do? You're going to ethnically cleanse them? You're going to force them out of Crimea in the hundreds of thousands or more? How's that going to work for your EU accession? Okay, how about if you force the Russians to buy it, to pay for it so they don't get to annex it, they have to pay for it. You make it on the installment plan, a 5 or a 10 or a 15 or a 25 year plan at the end of it, after they pay the money, and if they behave in a way that doesn't threaten Ukrainian sovereignty during that period, we would internationally recognize it as Russian territory. Okay, so is that a good outcome? It's unsatisfactory, I get that. But if you can't get those, if you can't march on Moscow, if you can't impose the peace that's morally just, if your partners won't put boots on the ground to impose that peace with you, then what do you do in that situation? It's not something that I'm happy about, but I got to get to a Ukraine that's rebuilding, not being bombed and destroyed. And I'll take as much of that as Ukraine as I can get in the time being. And if I don't get it all, I'm not going to acknowledge Russian occupation legally, unless there's a bargain that there's behavior modification on the Russian side, or I'll wait it out like in the.

[B]

Korean Peninsula in Poland, and it's election season in Poland, you're seeing the Poles decide to stop sending military equipment because they have to replenish their own stocks. And even more importantly, in American politics, you're starting to see many people in the Republican Party question aid to Ukraine completely, not least Donald Trump. I have to think that Zelensky, on his trip last week to the United States, was extremely anxious about these developments. And I don't know that they're going to get any better in the near future.

[C]

So, yeah, this is not something that we're going to be able to succeed the next 20 years at $200 million a day from the US alone, as well as our European part. So once again, if the Russian army disintegrates in the field, we're good. But if they don't, then what? What's the plan? To pretend that you're going to get $200 million a day for 20 more years or 10 more years, or 5 more years, or 3 more years? Whatever it takes? I don't think that's a good strategy. So let's talk about EU accession. You did the Poland thing. Great example, right? The polls, the biggest supporters of Ukraine have stopped sending weapons in the past couple of weeks.

[B]

A country where there are thousands and thousands of refugees from Ukraine and children in Polish schools from Ukraine.

[C]

Yeah, this is over a million Ukrainians, well over a million in Poland. They've been open, armed about taking the Ukrainians in and sending every weapon that they could and lobbying others to do the same. No bigger supporter than Poland. And then Ukraine is exporting grain. They can't export it all through the Black Sea because of the Black Sea as a war zone. Export through Poland. And Poland announces that they're not going to send the weapons. They've turned off the weapons supply for Ukraine. And so this snafu or this brouhaha over Ukrainian agricultural exports competing with Polish farmers, where there is an election, just like you pointed out, and they have a democracy and people have to campaign and compete and beat the rivals. And farmers vote, not just farmers, but farmers vote, too. And so that's a really complicated process. And believe it or not, that's harder than taking Tok Mak on the battlefield right now against those entrenched Russian defenses.

[B]

Steve, finally, we've seen an increasing evidence of a global realignment since the beginning of the second phase of the War against Ukraine. The. That is since the full scale invasion. And that is Putin's effort to align North Korea, China, to some extent India against the West. How successful has he been and how not successful?

[C]

So four big victories here that we've won with our Ukrainian courage and ingenuity. One is Ukraine kept its sovereignty, defended its capital, and kept its independent nation, no puppet regime in Kyiv. It's a huge victory. They won that. Second was just as big, if not bigger from a strategic point of view. The west got resuscitated, unity, resolve, rediscovering. That was a huge victory. The third was Russian humiliation. They're not 10ft tall. Putin is not a genius. He's not even a tactician, let alone a strategist. I mean, he's a murderer. He's trouble, but he's no genius. Fourth big victory, China losing its luster. Right? China had a wedge between the US and Europe on China policy. So Xi Jinping, by siding with Putin in this war, this criminal aggression against Ukraine, destroyed his own wedge between Europe and the US On China policy. And Europe has come much closer to the US and understands that having your economy be dependent on an authoritarian regime, like with Russian gas, was not a good idea. Same thing vis a vis China. Okay, so those are four big victories. If you won those victories, you'd want to take those off the table. You'd want to not keep those at risk. You wouldn't want to be in a situation where Kyiv could be at risk still, where the Western unity and resolve could be undermined because of a Tet offensive or whatever. I want to grab Putin by the throat and I want to make life uncomfortable for him politically. We got defectors. We leave them inside so that they can leak to us. Let them fly out to wherever, land in Warsaw, land in Helsinki, get him to the hog and have him say, in the hog. You know, I got the uniform on. I'm a Russian nationalist. I appeal to Putin's base. I'm not pro NATO, but this war in Ukraine is hurting Russia. Let's get those men in uniform, let's get those defectors. Let's pressure this regime. Let's push and push and push until he says, okay, you guys take the pressure off of me. I get it. We'll do the armistice. Or somebody on the inside will say, the thing's falling apart. People are flying planes, they're giving speeches in Russian, on tv, in uniform, in the hog. And that's what I want to see. I want to see that, and I want to see it yesterday. And that's how I'm going to get to a better outcome. And if you don't agree, let's at least debate that. I want a fulsome debate about that, about why we're not doing it and what might be the consequences if we do do it. Not just negative, but also positive consequences. Because I want Ukraine to win.

[B]

Steve Kotkin, thank you as always, and we'll talk again soon.

[C]

Okay, dude, be well.

[B]

Stephen Kotkin is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.

[E]

I'm Katie Drummond. I'm Wired's Global Editorial Director.

[B]

I'm Michael Kollori, Wired's Director of Consumer, Tech and Culture.

[E]

And I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior correspondent at Wired. And our show, Uncanny Valley is about the people, power and influence of of Silicon Valley. And right now, Silicon Valley and Washington have never been more intertwined. So each week we get together to talk about a big story, often at the intersection of tech and politics.

[C]

Right.

[E]

So whether we're talking about Trump, Coin, Doge, or Elon Musk, we will always.

[B]

Explain how these Silicon Valley forces are.

[E]

Affecting Washington and how they affect you. Make sure you're following Uncanny Valley in your podcast app of choice so you don't miss an episode.

[C]

From prx.