George Barros

Look, this economic line of effort is important.

It does have an effect.

It is, like sanctions, insufficient to end the war because ending the war actually does require

stopping the advances off the battlefield.

And of course, this helps, but it's not by itself.

I think when people sort of think about the political factors or the economic factors, it's sort of like this fantasy that previous policymakers would entertain, which is we can control Russia's intentions and control their actions with sanctions.

We'll just sanction them.

And those are good.

Sanctions have a place on our role in statecraft, but without force, especially when it's a large war, it's necessary but insufficient.

And that's the temptation.

It's thinking there's always easy tools out.

There really are no easy tools out.

I would argue that regaining territory would be better and make a more compelling case to bring Putin to the table if that's the goal.

That's ambitious, not impossible, ambitious.

And I think it's something worth striving for.

We've certainly not given it our all to try to actually strive for it in good faith.

There's a lot more that we can do.

And the President Trump still has the cards on the table to do that sort of thing.

But stopping it would be a good place to be.

I mean, it's difficult.