MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
From Europe, a warning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER DONALD TUSK: (Non-English language spoken).
KELLY: That is the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk, warning Poland's parliament about intelligence assessments which suggest Russia is planning hybrid drone and missile strikes against countries that support Ukraine, including Poland. Tusk says Russia will pretend the strikes are accidents, but they are, in fact, designed to paralyze NATO. So what might Russia be up to, and how should NATO respond? - questions I want to put to Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations. Hi there.
RICHARD HAASS: Hi there.
KELLY: Hi there. So Prime Minister Tusk says he's basing this on intelligence he received from NATO, from Ukraine, from U.S. agencies. We don't know details of what the intelligence said. How seriously should we take this morning?
HAASS: I also don't know the details, but I would take it seriously because there's a certain logic to it from Vladimir Putin's situation. First of all, if Putin wants to do it, I don't think there's anyone in Russia who can stop him. He's essentially - he's deinstitutionalized that country. So if he wants...
KELLY: Why would he want to? Why would he want to escalate?
HAASS: Well, one is - you suggested it in your intro, which is to put pressure on European countries who are helping Ukraine economically or militarily, and he basically wants to say, this is not cost free. So this is a form of a deterrence, if you will, or interference in them to get them to change their policy.
The other possibility - and the two are not mutually exclusive - is things have not gone great for him in Ukraine. So what he'd like to do is score something of a geopolitical win. Just imagine he does something - again, as was suggested - in the so-called gray area. We're not talking about the Red Army, 50,000 troops coming across a border. We're talking about stuff that's much more subtle. And that's probably going to be below the level where many in NATO would directly respond.
It would certainly, I would think, be below the level that Donald Trump would want to respond. Indeed, it's not clear to me what sort of a provocation would be required for Donald Trump to respond, since his enthusiasm for NATO is, shall we say, finite? So Putin may say, this is a real opportunity to deliver something of a historic blow to NATO.
KELLY: That's interesting because by way of context, there's been a series of recent incidents along NATO's eastern flank already. In the last week alone, we're tracking a Russian drone that hit a passenger train in Ukraine but just over a mile from the Polish border. Poland's military says they found a Russian drone with a warhead off the Polish coast. It sounds like you're saying subtle might be a key part of this strategy. If you march an army and move tanks over a border, NATO's going to have to do something. But if you just keep pinging with drones, it makes it a little bit harder to figure out what to do.
HAASS: Hundred percent. But it's demoralizing all the same for NATO 'cause what it will do is, you'll have debates, and it will expose fissures within NATO 'cause some will say we have to respond. Others will be against it. Then there won't be a consensus on exactly what to do.
Again, I think there'll be a big gap between those Europeans who want to act, and this - the Trump administration, which does not, which, shall we say, has viewed Putin and Russia benignly from the get-go. So yeah, I think from Putin's point of view, this is a low-risk, high-reward sort of undertaking, particularly if he keeps it relatively modest in what he does.
KELLY: I am compelled to note that Russia denies these accusations. Russia's foreign ministry is calling them contrived, far-fetched. How seriously do you take the denials?
HAASS: (Laughter) About as seriously as you do, I should think.
KELLY: So if you're the secretary general of NATO and you're sitting in Brussels watching all this, listening to this, what's the move? How should NATO respond?
HAASS: What I would do is probably push for a couple of things. One is, I would try to head this off. And one thing comes to mind in particular, which is to do more help for Ukraine, to basically tell Putin, if you are to do these things, we're not looking for a war with you. You're not looking for a war with us. But this is not going to be cost-free. So certain things that we have held back doing for Ukraine - delivering this or that weapon system or some new tranche of money - I would find things to put on that list for Putin.
My - just, you know, as you know, it looks like the Congress is finally getting around to passing a sanctions bill against Russia. The problem with the bill they're going to pass is what it does is it gives the president power to introduce new tariffs and - against countries that trade with Russia, but it gives him discretion, so he may not.
Plus, one of the countries and the biggest trading partner of Russia is obviously China. We're not going to introduce new sanctions against China 'cause China will then cut off the export of rare earth minerals to the United States, and they're essential for lots of the things we do. So I don't think, you know, those kinds of sanctions are going to matter. You're going to laugh when I tell you what I think is the best thing we could do.
KELLY: What is it?
HAASS: It argues for wrapping up the war in - with Iran. The best sanction we could give against Russia - to Russia is energy prices that begin to go down dramatically. So that would actually have an enormous impact on Russia's economy. That - so it's another argument, I would say, for thinking seriously about looking for a diplomatic offramp in Iran.
KELLY: We have just a few seconds left, but in that time, just zoom in on the U.S. role because concurrent with everything we've just been describing, President Trump says the U.S. is making progress in establishing a permanent U.S. army base in Poland. Where does the U.S. fit in?
HAASS: Well, this is an opportunity to stand by the polls and stand by NATO. Poland's probably the most robust country vis a vis Russia. So the real question is, will we take advantage of this opportunity? I sure hope so.
KELLY: Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, always good to speak with you. Thanks.
HAASS: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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