Audio file
9-26-23PaulEdgar Mixdown 2.mp3

Transcript
Speaker
Alright, you talk first.
Paul
OK, four score 20 or 10 or something like that. Four score and seven years ago is. Is that alright? Did I get? That right?
Michelle
Hey there Slavic. Connexion listeners. It's Michelle and I'm Here today with Misha. Hey Misha.
Misha
Hi, Michelle.
Michelle
How are you doing?
Misha
I'm doing very well. How are you?
Michelle
I'm surviving, actually more than surviving today. I was super excited because we had a wonderful conversation with an even more wonderful guy. Who did we talk to?
Misha
Today we had interim director of the Clements Center for National Security, Dr. Paul Edgar, a philologist of several ancient languages. He served as infantry officer in the US Army and Social Service in Korea, Italy, Iraq, Afghanistan. He holds a PhD in Middle Eastern languages and is just an amazing person overall. Honestly, for myself, this is one of the best conversations we've had on the podcast, so take a listen.
Paul
I've never not prepared so much for a podcast. Because I didn't know what to do.
Michelle
This is absolutely what we always want.
Paul
111.
Speaker
You can go next to next.
Michelle
You're listening to the Slavic Connexion brought to you by the Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Show we're really excited to have you if we probably should have done this like three years ago and I don't know what happened. Ohh the pandemic. That's right. That's what happened. So, but yeah, we've been remiss in not having you. So we're. So glad you're here. I think the first thing. That all of our listeners will want to know about. You is just who is Paul? And where did you come from? You know. How did you get into academia? How did you take it from the military to the? University space.
Paul
OK, OK, I'll do my best. I'm telling the truth. So I'm originally from Albuquerque, NM and really stumbled into college. Wanted to to get involved with federal law enforcement at the time. This is kind of the era of Miami vice and and bad boys and stuff like that, right? Where these these cop shows and cop movies and like that is so cool. So that's what I thought I'd do. And they, the federal law enforcement agencies. Told me to major in a stem field and to get military experience because they didn't hire at the time. They didn't hire straight out of college so so I did and joined ROTC. And my first experience doing kind of what I would call real army stuff, it took a while, probably took about nine months before I had something like that, that kind of experience in RTC. I developed a real enthusiasm for in military terminology for the work of the infantry of an infantryman and, and in particular, paratroopers. And and Ranger special operators, things like that. So. That really got a hold of me, and so I went into the army aiming to do that. And and I was very fortunate in that my second assignment was was was with 2nd Ranger Battalion. So did airfield seizures and hostage rescue and and, you know, cool raids and and and all that kind of stuff it. Was it was super. Enjoyable and exciting. And they got me hooked for for what I thought would be a one or two terms of service got me hooked for a lifetime or for a career, but roughly half of my the first half of my career was peace time. The peace time 90s. And we were doing a lot of stuff. And I was all over the place from, you know, from Panama to to Thailand to to North Africa and Eastern and Western Europe. So we're doing lots of things within, you know, involved with, with Kosovo and number of real world operations. But but still nothing that I would. Say amounts to like serious combat, right? Serious war, so. And then the second-half of my career was post 9/11, which was all combat right or almost entirely combat. So as we were sorting out what to do in those first couple of years, both in Iraq and Afghanistan, one of the things that was helpful to me was there were academics that were involved, that were trying to inform. What it was that we were really involved in, what was going on, what were we encountering? They were trying to be constructive there. Were probably lots. That that were not being constructive too, but I didn't. I didn't happen to come in touch with the. But it occurred to me that this was really helpful. I don't know that it helped us do better in Iraq or Afghanistan. I think there's an argument that it did, but I know neither one of those ended the way we had hoped. So to say that they helped us succeed is not the right way to put it. But to me, they were really helpful in understanding what it was that I was involved in in doing and. Now maybe I could do better and and our units could do better. That paired with I was, I was really fortunate there was another long story behind it. I've got what's called the Olmsted Fellowship or the Olmsted Scholarship. In in the Middle East In Short, Olmsted Fellows from all of the services go to non-english speaking countries to to learn a new language and to get a masters degree in that target language, not an English speaking program or something like that, which many foreign universities have, right, but to study alongside the students who. Are, you know, local nationals who are citizens of that country and I was was able to go to Tel Aviv University. And so I learned Hebrew, became modern Israeli, Hebrew became fluent, not native, but really very, very fluent in in modern Israel. Hebrew and that was kind of life changing too, right? Not all of us, but many of us, we get bit by the grad school bug. And that's what happened, right? Like ohh wow. It's so cool. Amazing to be smarter than you. Were before, right and. All these powerful insights and all of that attracted me as well. So and all those things happened within the, you know, three or four years of each other. And so it convinced me that if I ever, you know, at whatever point I retired from the army, that I would maybe try to give it a go and get a PhD and go into academia. And so that's what I did. I retired in 2014. There's a lot involved with the decision to retire, but retired in 2014 and came to the University of Texas to do a PhD in Middle Eastern languages and Cultures. And while I was in a very different stage of life than many grad students, I tried to experience. Grad student life as a kind of a normal grad student, you know. So I was entirely separated from the military. Gary, I was using the GI Bill, but I was, you know, I was here like a normal PhD student. I was a TA. I was an instructor. Right. So you're kind of carrying the load of a grad student of a real grad student, right. Or at least a real grad student at a public university. And doing both the coursework and sometimes being a TA is easy. But then sometimes being a TA is really. Terrible, right? It's and more, more often than not, it's easy. But then the terrible times. You're like, Oh my gosh. 80 papers on the same thing, poorly written, none. There's only some of them are poorly written. There is a heavy part to it, so wrapped that up in 2019 and I was very fortunate in that the same time that wheel and Bowden here in the Clements Center needed an A an associate director. I was finishing my degree and it was just a good match. And so I've been here for four. Years now.
Michelle
Wow, was that in 2019?
Paul
2019, Yeah, was that was that the store? Was that OK?
Music
Yeah. OK, that's it. We're done. Bad boys, bad boys.
Speaker 3
Once you get to do what you.
Speaker
Gonna do when they. Come for you bad. Boys, bad boys. What you gonna do? What you gonna do when they come for you when you were?
Misha
In your role as an interim executive, director of the Clemens Center, what are your priorities and? Goals for advancing the center's mission, and particularly in the context of the developing international situation.
Paul
Right, right. So this is a hard question for a few reasons. So will and I made a really good pair here. There was a really natural kind of gravitation to different parts of. And work and so together, under wills leadership, you know, we expanded the staff from about 3:00 or 4:00 to 12:00 and that we didn't just increase numbers of people. We increased the services that we provide to students, the programs that we provide to students, the the number of events that we provide to the public, the number of outside organizations that we have. Close contact with we now you know, we now have a very a very strong military fellows program which we didn't have before. So all of these things grew right. So now when you ask about priorities, the priority is not to fail any of these students. So that while we're in this interim space and in the process of hiring others who can, who can sort of share the load of student engagement and academic work and teaching that that we don't fail any of those undergraduates or any of our portfolio students at LBJ or our PhD students. Or our military fellows. So we have a fantastic staff and have divided up some of the responsibilities that would normally be on the associate director so that those functions move forward even if it's not quite the same it it won't be bad quality, it just may be less quality, right? And this is a good. This is also a developmental, some developmental reasons. Do this, but when we have a sort of a distinguished breakfast guest for one of our undergraduate groups, one of our undergraduates will moderate the conversation instead of me. Now we'll we'll make sure that they're prepared for it and all that sort of thing. We'll train them up and help them get there and do a good job. But maybe maybe they will not quite do this. Maybe they'll do better than me. I don't know, but maybe they won't do as well as as I would have being more familiar with the work and and more in tune with what kind of questions to ask along the way. So we're doing that sort of thing, but to to summarize it, it's not to fail the students that we have now and the programs that we already have going. And then the second thing that I think we need to do is what I call Build-a-bear. Which we need a faculty bench. We need a faculty bench in the Clemens Center in the Intelligence Studies project. All of these things which are, which are running very well, but we may only be one or two people deep and those and and those people may not always be with us. You know, I may not always be with us. And so we want. We want to, honest to goodness, institutionalized the Clement Center, the partnerships that we have with the Strauss Center. So that these can go on productively without us. Broadly, those are the two big things, which may be too broad, but to say that those are truly priorities. I know this is a very athletic department thing to say, OK. And and in, in, in academic circles, right, we don't talk this way, but we've kind of had the gas. The pedal or the pedal on the gas or whatever the right metaphor, it's right. We've had our foot on the pedal and it was the gas pedal, not the brake pedal. So we've had our foot on the gas for a few years now. And we want to keep it that way. So we want to be very Sarkeesian like and all gas no breaks, right. But we also have to make sure that in doing that, we don't burn out staff in the organization and everything else. And so it it, there's a there are thoughtful ways to do that and we figured out some of them and we just got to continue to do that. Until again, until help arrives, right?
Misha
I just wanted to thank you Paul for that, because it encompasses what my experience has been with the climate center and at UT in general. It wouldn't be the same without you and without the work that you've been doing and I've benefited tremendously. And in conjunction with that, I wanted to ask, what role does the center play in shaping the discussions and policy debates around the ongoing Russo Ukrainian war and what initiatives and research projects? Are you developing to address the ongoing?
Paul
Crisis. So because we are an educational center primarily and not a think tank primarily, although we did, there are some think tanky things that we do. Most of what we do is educational. You know, I I think we provide a a good forum for for discussion of these issues. We bring in guests who may they may not fall on every part of the spectrum here, but we we do try to be fair about about providing our students. To to the reasonable scope of perspectives on on all of these things. And so I would say naturally, I think that the the Russia, Ukraine, war, the the most reasonable answer is to continue more or less what we're doing now. We could do more of what we're doing or slightly less of what we're doing. But the the strongest argument is doing what you know, largely what we're doing is is helping Ukraine, making sure that Russia fails and Ukraine wins. Now again we we can we can actually parse that in a lot more detail and it needs to be parsed in a lot more detail. You know for example we don't want a column of of Ukrainian tanks approaching Moscow, right, that's that's not what we want. We want them to absolutely to win. But the aggression that is merited against Russia. Right now, doesn't necessarily mean occupying Moscow, right? So that that there there's a a point where we will have to probably rein in either politically or or militarily. We will have to rein in Ukraine and say, hey, if you go that far, that's probably going to be against your own interests and our interests and the interests of everybody in the region. So, so so anyway, since we tease these things out, it's not just help Ukraine at any cost, right. It's it's it's hopefully help Ukraine. Do this as well as possible, and as thoughtfully as possible, not just about tomorrow or next week or next month, but even now, even now, thinking about the long peace. That we want that everybody wants or most of us want. You know, maybe there are some people that don't want, but. And most of us want to succeed the the war or to come after the war. So. So we we bring these things up through speakers and through the speakers that we had a couple weeks ago on September 13th and the the panel but we also have these discussions. I think sometimes the the most fruitful discussions are prompted by those sessions, but then occur in smaller groups. You know, whether it's informally with portfolio students in the in the LBJ school or with our undergraduate fellows. After a breakfast or or during a breakfast, when it's easier to have a conversation amongst a smaller group rather than 500 of your favorite students and faculty and and local residents. Right? So coming back to what we do is is we we try to primarily we try to educate and we do in doing these things that I've just discussed, we educate people hopefully. And how best to think about this particular problem and problems in general? But then the scholarship that many of our doctoral students produce is oriented on some of these things. As well, sometimes very specifically, we've had a number of of scholars come through here. Young scholars come through here over the past few years that are Russia specialists more so than probably 10 years ago. And so I think those make contributions too. But in some ways, those contributions are less public. At least they're less immediately public. They may become very public in a in a well read book, or, you know, very popular book or something like that, and that that has. And but it's also not necessarily immediately immediately impactful on policymakers for impact on policymakers. I think you look to the personal relationships that people have between the Clement center or kind of this, this constellation of of Clement Center affiliates who maintain strong relationships with many people. In in both parties and in both sides of of in in all parts of the government and then the Texas National Security Review were on the rocks, both of whom we can only take partial credit for, right. We're we're part of that broader team with Ryan Evans and the war on the Rocks team that those are ways that we influence these policies as. Well, so I I think all of that together hopefully has more people getting to a better answer than they would have had otherwise.
Misha
As you mentioned, we've had a notable keynote speaker two weeks ago, Clint Williamson, who is a lead. Coordinator for his atrocity Crimes Advisory Group, and he offered some insights about his work helping Ukraine investigate war crimes. But how do you assess the evolution of the? Conflict and drawing on your significant military experience, how do you feel that the war will? Play out right so.
Paul
Like everybody, I was surprised. In fact, I remember standing, standing just down the hallway here the night before or the day before the invasion, telling one of our students this is not going to happen. He's Putin is not that ignorant to do this right. I mean, I was. I was overconfident. And obviously our Intel professionals and our administration at the time knew much better than I did and and got that one right. Right. That's thankfully that's one of the things that we've done. Very well, but I I think that I'm at this point in life and I would like to say that it comes from great wisdom, but it probably it's it's great wisdom that probably comes from previous great ignorance. OK, in in that there were times when I thought that the military could do just about anything or that different militaries could do just about anything. Just about any amount of time. If you go back to the 90s, kind of the standard in the airborne community was 30 day deployment, right, you you jump in, you jump into combat, do what you need to do for 30 days, straighten out that place in less than a month, get back on the aircraft and go home. Right. Take some, take some leave and then get back to training. You you'll get. Grenada, Panama right this this is kind of the the template for American paratroopers and American Rangers at the time is that you can set all things straight in about 30 days, right, give or take, and in some ways I reflected that mindset as well as that military power can. Can do things very quickly. Set things straight, and then everybody moves on with life. In other words, conflicts can be we we can wrap up these conflicts very quickly, and I've been disabused of that presumption or that model of of thinking for a while now. And so I did think that this was gonna be a longer fight than everybody. Else thought now. Now what I've said five years or 10 years? Yeah, I I don't know. I just know that I thought this thing is gonna grind on and on and on. It just is.
Michelle
Which is why you you didn't think Putin was gonna do it.
Paul
In the first right. Well, right? Yeah. No, no, right. So, so, even if Putin would have been successful. Thinking before the invasion, my own thinking would have been why would he even want to do this? Even if he's successful? If he captures Kiev, this is just gonna be a huge pain in his *** for the rest of his life. You know, it's not like they're gonna be ohh, gosh darn. You win. Yep, got it. OK, we are all now. Russian subjects? No, it's like we're gonna kick your *** a little bit at a time until you're no longer here. And even if it takes 20 or 30 years. So I did view this as a long term. Conflict, even if it was a long term insurgency, obviously it's not been that there, you know, while there's certainly some insurgent parts to it in in Russian occupied areas, predominantly a army on army fight and so the so, so. So let me kind of bring it back to the United States for just. A second it's because. Because this thing is going to be a grind, I would have said we need to posture in a way to help Ukraine survive and win through the grind. Whether that's insurgency or whether that's what we have, right, you know, I I really like the way Steve Cotton put so much of these things. And and Steve is somebody that wants Ukraine to win, right? He's not trying. And sometimes people, I think misinterpret what he has to say. It's like being anti Ukraine and it's it's not he just he understands war even as somebody who's not personally experienced war himself. He understands war so incredibly well that that he can be a little bit predictive in these things. Been more accurate than than many people most of the time, but the two things that you need are the willpower to fight and the capacity the material and organization, or at least sufficient organization to. Fight. And so our assistance should be oriented on ensuring that they don't lose their will and ensuring that they don't lose their capacity and that they if if anything, they have too much and that we say OK, please don't cross the border. OK, I I. Don't think it will be that hard to convince them not to do that. But but in the in the moment if we get to that point, if and when we get to that. The anger and the frustrations of years will be pent up and it'll at least initially, it will be hard to say no, stop. It's for your own good. That's how. Again generally I would say we should posture ourselves and and again for the most part we have and I I'm sure that I could tweak the things in certain ways. That, I would say would be better, but broadly I think we've we've been on the right track.
Michelle
Does include NATO membership? Ukraine winning.
Paul
I so I actually don't think that that's and this is I think this is one of those areas where we can be clever sometimes with foreign affairs and especially when it comes to war, maybe especially when it comes to war, there needs to be no cleverness, OK? We're just gonna we're we're just gonna destroy them until they cannot fight anymore. Period. But then when it comes to to diplomacy, I think now here there's there's room for being clever so that other so that everybody feels like they won. OK. So for example, if you give Ukraine really, really substantial unilateral guarantees of of security. Equivalent to to major non NATO partnership things like that. That you know that's sufficient. I think if it helps assuage whatever comes, you know what, or whoever comes after Putin, for example, if it helps assuage them, their their frustration and anger by saying Ukraine will never be part of NATO, but we're going to give all these other security agreements there again, there's. Kind of room. For being clever so that Russia can say we prevented Ukraine from joining NATO, even though it's only a technicality because all other kinds of assistance and contingencies and everything else for assistance. For health and coming to their aid and time of war are already there, I do think that there's room for that and I think we it should be an open question, right? I I don't. I'm not saying we shouldn't give them NATO membership, but I do think that there's room to be sophisticated and clever when you get to that point, there's not room to be sophisticated and clever to say, look, we want the information. We we won the information battle and and your tanks are still approaching Kiev, right? It's now you need to destroy the tanks right there. There needs to be no cleverness there and you need to to physically materially. Dominate in war in in a way that there's not. You're not simply trying to be clever. Sophisticated does that. Does that make? A little bit.
Michelle
Of sense, yeah, no, absolutely going back to the question that Misha asked about how you think this war is going to play out. Do you think that we? Need to see Putin's gone before the war? Ends because you know.
Paul
If people surprise you, I don't think that he'll last. I just, I don't. I think that he'll be gone. It. I think that it will coincide. That's. And what I'm and why do I believe that? I I don't have a great reason to tell you why I believe that. But I do think it's likely that it will coincide. That the end of the war will coincide with either Putin's personal end or the end of Putin's power. But that being said, we have seen, you know, seeing political reversals that are truly enormous. You know, some of the ones and, and I know many people will, will argue with me, right with some of the the names I. Might throw out but. You know Ariel Sharon, I think made a huge. Change of of heart at near the end of his he didn't realize that it was near the end of his time as Prime Minister. But the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza, that's not a sharoni Ian thing to do. OK. I mean, it's that that was to me. That was a a huge reversal now. Now some people will play it differently and say no, he did that. So that he could keep the West Bank. It was really not. It was a trip. Maybe they're right. I I don't think that they are, but but that was a that was a change of heart that that I thought was big enough, that it surprised everybody. You know, I think there are others that we could go through as well that are similarly change their minds in a way that you would just never expect and maybe maybe Putin will do that. Maybe he'll wake up, you know. I don't know. Maybe you'll wake up and say this was really dumb, so I don't. Again, I don't want to be entirely predictive. There is room for for change here. But. But I think more likely is that the end of the war will coincide with the end of his regime and. And whether it's, you know, whether it's the, you know, it's a chicken. And if you if I if I say that whether the chicken comes before the egg or vice versa, I I don't know, but. I do think they'll coincide.
Michelle
I guess it's a follow up to. That to what extent should the US? Yeah. Involved in all of this. And is it the US's responsibility as a democratic leader to be pulling Ukraine back if they get to that red line, right?
Paul
Right, So what is the US's role? So one is that we, we honest to goodness, no we're not. Of course, absolutely not. We're we're not perfect but we try to do things by consensus. Right. So does Ukraine want us there at the negotiating table? Does Russia want us there at the at the negotiating table? But who else do they want, like, do they not? Do they want us not there? There are moments in which the United States is the only, even even by states that don't like us or don't trust us. That we're still the most trusted, it's, which is the weird thing, right? That you don't trust the United States, but you still trust him more than anybody else. I mean, it's it's really right. It's it's true. It's true. That's very much the case in a in a lot of circumstances. And so are there ways that we can. And be the connective tissue that pulls this thing together in a way that's honest to goodness by the consent of the parties and not. And now we may, we may sweeten the pot a little bit and say we'll and we'll give you $2 billion in, you know, in money for reconstruction or something like that. Right. But if we do that, that's not a bad thing, right? And and if nobody else is willing to do that and weren't willing and able to do that, and it and it fundamentally stabilizes a region, it it benefits everybody, including us. And we can even, you know, kind of financially tease that out. So what does our $2 billion get us, right, so. You know what, what did our investment in the Marshall Plan get us? We could. We could probably do some pretty good math. Who will get it perfect. But we could do some pretty good math to figure out the the return on investment of the Marshall Plan. You know, there are some camera fractals here, and we've gotta presume about what the expenses would have been otherwise, but nonetheless, it's not that we don't benefit from being involved. Or from closing a gap that nobody else can or will close with again. Oftentimes it is, it's it, it may be money or military aid or. Or things like that. But again, if we can do if if we're there because people want us there and we close the deal that's closed by consent and we happen to fill some of the gaps that help make it palatable for all of the parties. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it's us. I don't think it's a matter of, well, if we don't do that, then you can't. Fix the potholes on MLK? Well, we we happen to be. There's a lot of potholes on MLK. There's so many bottles on MLK this does not have to be a 0 sum financial gain.
Michelle
But I think Russia thinks it. Has to be.
Paul
They they they made at this point they they may and I mean one of one of the very sad things right about about war is that sometimes the only the only way to end it is to go through it. And you hate to see that anybody who has you don't even have to be in war to feel it. But certainly people who have been involved in war and understand the absolute devastation of even a small war, things can be rebuilt, right? But lives can never be replaced. Lives can never. And I don't just mean the dead people, right. I mean the lives of the living can't be reconstructed in a way as if that never happens. But that being said, historically you can also make a very good case that sometimes the belligerents have to fight it through to the end in order to finally get to an end. And it's hugely tragic. I think that's part of you know, that's kind of part of the human condition, right, or the human. Life or human state but anyways.
Misha
You know, many people are arguing for a potential Armistice or peace settlement, even if temporary, not permanent, and they say, is that bad peace is better than a good war and and you you've said that sometimes you have to just fight through it. Do you believe that Ukraine? Could make some. Sort of settlement with Russia, a bad peace and not fight through.
Paul
It. Well, I again, I think this is one of those things where this is a new thing to me or relatively new thing is that it there are policy makers that think you need to get the big thing right and then it'll all work out right. And and I'm actually not of that. Camp I'm more of the camp that says it's how well you work out the details of whatever grand thing is decided. That's what is really more determinative. So and and that's where I would fall here is that I'm not against an Armistice, I'm against an Armistice that has no hope of of then. Producing some kind of, you know, process of getting to a really a a fair settlement and you know the the the really the the kind of the textbook example here is the unpopular war right and and. And and Kissinger doing this really incredible job of getting everybody to an Armistice and then unwinding that whole book or not in the Sinai until until you have the Camp David Accords, right. I mean, so, so if we could have an Armistice that we that we thought, OK, if we work hard enough at this. We do think that there's honest to goodness room to get back to 20/13/2014 borders. Then yeah, yeah, do that. But if it's just an Armistice for, you know, for the sake of of delaying until the Russians can resupply and attack again, no. So sorry, man. I'm being noncommittal. I'm developing the options.
Misha
No, it makes it makes little sense. Looking back at your career in the military, in academia, what lesson would you offer people who want to change the world to the better to unwind this this difficult not you know, sort of like Henry Kissinger that you mentioned. How do people become?
Paul
Right.
Misha
Efficient at doing this and having this vision.
Paul
Yeah. So, so I I think there's a few things that and so. So let me let me wax eloquently on this for a minute, maybe maybe something will be relevant to the question you asked. No. So so I thought a lot about this this past summer is that there's a difference, and I and I'm not panning activists. OK, it may sound like I am, and I'm and I'm not. I'm not. There's there's a place for activists and activism, but activists can be single issue people that never have to solve a problem. OK, they want a problem solved and they want a problem solved the way they want that problem solved. Period. But that's not the way the world works. That's not the way people work. That's the way that's the way governments and society works. Our lives are never a single issue. Life, right? And so. So you do need to understand that if that, if you're serious about trying to unwind the book or not. So I don't know if that's going to. Sound very good on. The podcast, but but the Gordian, the Gordian, the you know? We'll we'll mix our metaphors here, the Gordian book. Or not so. So if if. If you want to be the kind of person. That is involved in that work. Just be prepared to be frustrated and you've got to be. You've got to be willing to accept frustration because you can't solve a problem you've got to solve lots of problems as best as possible at any given time, and you're only and you're only usually you're only contributing to one small part of everything that's going on. So. So I guess, you know, one of the things is, is that you got to. Simultaneously be very ambitious about being serious about solving big problems, but then also be hugely humble. About your capacity to personally make a difference in that a lot of these things are done on the margins, a lot of them are done incrementally over generations, and then even even more than that, the world's and and I don't know, you know people would say this is like enlightenment thinking or whatever. They're probably right. I I don't know. But one of the ways that we think is that we naturally think. And I don't think it's an American thing or I'm I'm not. I don't think it's necessarily an American or a western thing. Maybe it is, but then we can sort of get everything to this we. Can get the whole world. To this state of equilibrium, where everything is, you know, sort of sort of perfect and peaceful and you. Know the the the. Inflation grows at 2% a year for for all eternity after that right. And so. So everything is stable and. Printable. That's not. That's not the way it's going to be. So even while you're trying to solve the problems that interest you and make marginal or incremental progress on the problems that really interest you because you love China or you love, you know, you're just, you're just fascinated by Taiwan and its relationship to China. And so you really want to do that. We'll do do that. But at the same time, there's. The the world's gonna unravel, and even if you're doing a great job there, the world's gonna unravel in several other places while you're keeping it together in one place. Alright, so. So this is this is there is no light at the end of the. Funnel. Alright, that, that, this is this is the work of people forever. OK and and and and that we need to be humble and gracious in the way that we go about it and that being and you know sort of being motivated and humble and gracious all at the same time we may actually be able to. To make some good progress, but it will never be.
Michelle
I like to call. Those kind of people, proactive pessimists.
Misha
Destroying from folk.
Michelle
The story is a problem, kind of. Like a George Kennan, you. Know because he was definitely very pessimistic. But he did and that's what I always said. OK. Your final words. Is there anything that you'd like to plug or share? Like what's on the horizon for you? What what is next in your life?
Paul
I I don't know. I don't know. So I do hope to. So I do hope. To finish you. Know my my book. That was my dissertation, right? I like everybody. That finishes the pH. D needs to do, and that's reasonable, but I do we, you know, we need to the most more important are the students here and that they that they get where they need to go. But I would like to finish that in the next. 12 to 18 months. 
But you know what else I'd like to see? I'd like to see lots of centers and programs be like be like CREEES. For real. Because you all are, you know you're enthusiastic, you're serious, you do stuff, you have a vibrant community, and it's open minded. It's cultural. It's also political. You know it's, it's, it's realist and constructive, right? I mean, it's all of these things and it's openly, all of these things. And it's a friendly place for people to be. It's not hyper partisan. Maybe everyone will get insulted, but beyond the Clements Center’s like immediate circle of friends, you're the in my mind you're the epitome of what a university center should be because you are so active and vibrant, right? And serious about what it is that you're doing. And humble too. You guys carry humility with you that that many of us in academia do not have. So that's what I would like to see. And if we can be a motivation and help to, we love to always be partners with you all. And if we can be a motivation and help to other centers to be similar healthy and vibrant and constructive then, that would be great.
Michelle
Well, thank you so much, Paul.
Paul
Ohh thank you guys and I'm glad I didn’t prepare.
Misha
It was amazing. One of our best episodes ever. Seriously.
Michelle
Very excited to put this out, so yeah.
Paul
I was so stressed out.
Speaker
You're stressed out for nothing.
Michelle
The Slavic Connexion is part of the Texas Podcast Network -- the conversations changing the world – brought to you by The University of Texas at Austin. The opinions expressed in this program represent the views of the hosts and the guests, and not of the University of Texas at Austin the market. Please visit us online at slavx.org. Thank you.
LERA
The Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies condemns the Russian Federation's military invasion and. We stand in support of the. People of Ukraine who are. Fighting for their lives and sovereignty in the face of the unjustified invasion by Russian military forces.

OUT TAKES
Michelle
I'm like I have all of these books.
Paul
Like me, you've read about two of them.
Michelle
I have done the academic readings of all of these books.
Misha
Academic reading is like two pages, yeah?
Michelle
Academic reading is surveying the table of contents... reading a few paragraphs of the introduction.
Paul
Choosing a footnote that you can criticize.
Michelle
Yeah, that's how you get through grad school...