STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's hear next from Wolfgang Ischinger. He previously served as Germany's ambassador to the United States and the U.K. He was also Germany's deputy foreign minister and now chairs the Munich Security Conference. Welcome to the program.
WOLFGANG ISCHINGER: Good morning, Steve.
INSKEEP: OK, so we heard from Republican Michael McCaul, who says Ukraine can't possibly sign this deal. Democrat Mark Warner doesn't like it either. Some Republicans do like it. But what's the European view?
ISCHINGER: Well, the good news is that there is a plan and it's being discussed. And that is better than not having a plan. The downside is that we're having some kind of chaotic situation because there was no previous meaningful consultation process between the United States government and her European allies. Now everybody is urgently trying to talk to everybody else in order to come up with an agreed version that we could all support as we confront the Russian aggressor.
Quite frankly, let me just repeat what I have been arguing and some of my European friends have been arguing for many months now. I think, in order to straighten things out as we try to go from war to peace in Ukraine, we should recreate something which successfully worked, led by the United States, in earlier such crises, namely to have a meaningful contact group where we would all be united and hammer out, on every single item, an agreed position before we confront the other side.
INSKEEP: Is the public disagreement itself harmful to this process?
ISCHINGER: Well, I think what's harmful to the process is that the Russian side will find it easy to exploit these differences. They will say, oh, the Europeans are now boycotting this wonderful American plan, and therefore, the nasty Europeans are the bad guys. And that could sow discord and make the transatlantic relationship, of course, a lot more difficult to play a constructive role, which is exactly what we should be doing. This is why I think that a little bit of behind closed doors negotiating would take us a long way into a meaningful peace agreement. It's very important that Russia understands that the United States and Europe and Ukraine are on the same page. Otherwise, Russia will continue to find ways to divide us and to separate us. And that's not going to end the war at any time soon.
INSKEEP: Well, let's try to figure out what a sensible plan from your perspective would look like. This proposal that's on the table calls for Russia to keep the territory in Ukraine that it's taken, and it also gets some more. The Ukrainians have to back up some more. I'd like to understand what you think a sensible plan looks like. Would it begin with a ceasefire with the battle lines exactly as they are, everybody keeps what they now have?
ISCHINGER: You are absolutely right. I think a central point where most Europeans that I know would totally agree would be, let's start the process by agreeing a ceasefire along the lines that are currently in existence. And once the shooting stops, then we can meaningfully start talking about territory, et cetera, et cetera. Regarding territory, the most important point is that we must not recognize under international law the occupation, the annexation of Ukrainian territories by Russia.
We can take note of the fact that certain parts of Ukraine, like Crimea and certain parts of eastern Ukraine, are currently occupied by Russia. But that must not be a legal recognition. If it were a legal recognition, you know, then of course the next step would be that everybody would say, oh, OK, we can change European borders. And we can seize territories by force, and no one will stop us. That's a recipe for disaster for European stability and security going forward.
INSKEEP: What kind of security guarantee, then, does Ukraine need to receive that the rest of its territory will not be invaded at some future date by Russia?
ISCHINGER: Well, I think most Europeans would agree with me when I say, of course, the ideal would've been to invite Ukraine into NATO. That does not seem to be possible because you need a consensus for that among all NATO members, and that's not going to happen anytime soon. In the absence of NATO membership, I think the best strategy for Ukraine is what we call in the international diplomacy world the porcupine strategy. In other words, America helps equip Ukraine in a way that makes Ukraine look like a military porcupine. If somebody tries to attack it, it may hurt a lot. That's the idea.
INSKEEP: Very interesting. So the security guarantee is not a promise from the United States or from Europe precisely. It is Ukraine's own strength. It is not limiting Ukraine's military, it's actually building it up even more.
ISCHINGER: Well, that's the core of it because quite frankly, history shows that guarantees, when they're written on paper, are sometimes worth zero in the real world. We've seen that with the so-called Budapest Memorandum in 1994. In other words, I think the hardware that Ukraine needs, Ukraine should get from us, from Europe, from the United States. We should continue to support Ukraine.
INSKEEP: An argument that hardware might be better than the software of a promise. That comes from Germany's former Ambassador to the United States Wolfgang Ischinger.
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