On this Washington Roundtable episode of the Defense & Aerospace Report Podcast, sponsored by Bell, our guests are Dov Zakheim, PhD, former DoD comptroller, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Dr. Patrick Cronin of the Hudson Institute, Michael Herson of American Defense International and Jim Townsend, a former deputy assistant secretary of defense for Europe and NATO who is now with the Center for a New American Security.

Topics:

— Congress moves to toward appropriations measure in March, but political hurdles remain in Senate as House moves ahead on another temporary measure

— Whether Russia’s manufactured Ukraine crisis marks an inflection point that drives Washington and the West to toughen up or stick with business-as-usual approach

— Russia crisis and the Biden administration’s tepid approach to hard power as White House prepares new strategies and defense spending requests

— Ways China can support Russia, whether Moscow invades Ukraine or not

— Implications of disregarding the 1994 Budapest Memorandum that extended security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for Kiev giving up Russian nuclear weapons on its territory

— Why Washington has to weigh in as Argentina joins China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the two nations backed each other’s territorial claims to the Falklands and Taiwan

— Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy that includes new Pacific partnership with US, UK, France, Japan, Australia and New Zealand as the Quad begins to look increasingly like an alliance

— Grading Biden on handling of Ukraine crisis

— Diverting $7 billion in frozen Afghan assists for 9/11 fund and humanitarian aid for Kabul

— Irrelevance of RNC censure of Reps. Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger and former President Trump’s mishandling and destruction of documents on GOP