30 Quotes by Marvin Kalb

This is one of the greatest challenges facing this particular president. This is the beginning of a major effort by the White House. Everybody has to chip in. This is a major offensive in which the media plays a big role.

But if they're as powerful as you say they are, shouldn't you name them?

I could name names, and then you could tell me if I'm wrong, ... Are you talking about someone like Senator Frist?

Putin is a despot, and he's a very good despot. And he will see things in a narrow way. What is good for Russia? That is what he will do. If that's represented by a move toward the Baltic, that would be very dangerous, but he would do it, on the assumption that he would ask himself the question: I am prepared to fight for Estonia. Is the United States? Is Germany? Is Britain, France?

We had in the West a very romantic vision of Russia back in 1991, when the Soviet Union died and whatever is Russia began to emerge. And we began to think of it as a democracy. We're going to bring it into the West. All is going to be wonderful. That was never in the cards.

Vladimir Putin is a Russian czar. He's kind of a mix of Peter the Great and Stalin. He's got both in his veins. And he looks out first and foremost for the national security interests of Russia. He accepts that, in Eastern Europe, that is a Russian backyard, that is a Russian sphere of influence. Ukraine lives most uncomfortably and unhappily in a Russian backyard.

If anything good is going to emerge out of this, it's going to be the result of an acceptable modus vivendi between Ukraine and Russia. The two of them will have to get together at some point. It is going to be a result that many people in the West will not like, because Russia, as the bigger power, is going to get the better of the deal. So, a lot of people will say, that's appeasement. That's this - that - it's reality.

Every nation at the end of the day must fend for itself. Sometimes, it needs help. And Ukraine deserves all the help in the world.

But there are realities governing what they can do. And Ukraine cannot live with the false image that somehow or another the West will come and rescue her. It's not going to happen.