Ambassador Robert Blackwill

That's theory one, and the older generations are corrupt and not warriors, to use a word that's now prevalent in Washington.

Well, how could President Trump do that?

He could say, we will no longer support you with intelligence information.

which would be a catastrophic development.

The second is that this elderly leadership of the PLA began perhaps in the faintest possible way to dissent from the path that Xi Jinping is on, which is more and more dominated by this single personality.

It is.

Exactly.

And it helps them with their targeting, with moving their forces, all the rest.

Well, he can, as a presidential actor with unlimited power in that regard, he can end it tomorrow.

And nobody knows which of those it is or a combination of the two.

But I think we do have to take seriously the military threat that China represents with respect to Taiwan, which they're working very hard on every single day.

And he could say, if you do not accept X, Y, Z, I'm going to end it.

Second, I'm going to stop selling

weapons to Europe, which they then pass on to you.

And one of the things that's happened during this period that we've been discussing, let's say the last 15 to 20 years, is they've dramatically narrowed the gap between our two militaries, especially concerning Taiwan contingencies.

And Europe cannot keep you sufficiently supplied with especially artillery shells, but other things as well, and so forth.

So Putin could hope that with that ultimatum from the United States and from President Trump, perhaps

And we have to do something about that.

Deterrence today is the weakest it's ever been with respect to deterring China from acting on Taiwan.

the view in the Ukrainian leadership would succumb to this American pressure.