Admiral Stavridis on a Plan to Get Ukrainian Wheat Out of a Warzone

spoken about, I guess multiple times at this point. But Ukraine, of course sometimes referred to as the bread basket of Europe or whatever cliche you want to use, a big portion of the world's grains derived from Ukraine. And I mean there's also lots of grain growing in Russia as well, which is also off limits now. But there's an issue. Obviously,

Russia is blockading the country. It's hard to get that grain out, which means that there's a shortage, which means that prices are rising, which means that we've seen pressure, I mean particularly in emerging markets, places like Egypt that actually got a lot of their food supply from Ukraine. Yeah, that's right. And so we can look here at a chart of say wheat futures, and the price is obviously

going up. But for the American consumer, there's sort of like underlying food commodity prices, they're only a modest contributor to food inflation overall, and many emerging markets they're much more exposed directly to the price. And what's worse is not just the price but outright shortages. So it's one thing to say, Okay, the price is up. It's another thing to say, you literally cannot get the grade, you

literally cannot get the wheat. But that is the risk that's being faced right now for multiple reasons, but in large part due to this war, right, And you can imagine that would manifest itself in political pressure in a lot of places in the world, Like when people can't eat, they tend to get angry, right, I mean rightfully? So, yeah, And so then the question is, I guess there's two questions, is like, one is what is happening with wheat plantings

in Ukraine. But then even if plantings were to somehow be sustained amid the war, can how much of the grain can actually get out? And as you mentioned right now,

there's very little getting out. Yeah, And this sort of goes back to I guess the military tension between Russia and Ukraine, But how do you actually get supplies into the country and how do you get vital goods out because you still want the supply of wheat and food to be flowing relatively freely, and you also want Ukraine to be able to make some money right at a time when it actually needs money and could use that to buy weapons and supplies that too, all right, So

for more we're gonna be talking about some of the options to actually do this and whether there's a way for the U. S Military Western forces to play a positive role in safely getting grain out of the country. We're gonna be speaking to Admiral James stanf Revis. He was, among other things, the six Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. He has personal experience in perhaps similar operations, are similar situations of moving commodities around the world. Is a really

deep understanding of this stuff. So, Admiral, thank you so much for coming on odd lots. I really appreciate. It's great to be with both of you. Thank you absolutely, thank you so much. So to start, you give us your assessment of the current situation why exporting grain from Ukraine right now is so constrained, well, I'm really struck by a book I just published called to Risk It All Nine Conflicts and the Crucible of Decision, and it's about decision making under extreme stress. And so here I

think we have a pretty good example. Uh, both Vladimir Putin on if you will, the dark side of the equation and Volodimir Zalinsky on the lighter side on our side of the equation. Both of these men are literally risking at all. And one of the crucial components of it is this ability or not to export grain. I think you and Tracy Joe did a nice job laying out the challenges globally if it doesn't get out, So we come pretty quickly to okay, Admiral, So how would

you get the grain out? You know, I don't need to tell an odd lots audience that um of all international trade moves by sea, and grain, of course, is a commodity that moves out in in mass, and so the idea of trying to truck it out or even train it out of Ukraine just it doesn't serve. So the problem is Russia has taken their black sea fleet about forty warships and effectively they've blockaded the entire coast

line of Ukraine. They already control on the land side about seventy percent of that coastline on the Black Seat, but that remaining has Odessa in it. And Odessa is like Los Angeles Long Beach in the context of the United States. It's dug port. And therefore the key is, how can we if you will, open that port. And at the moment, it's not only blockaded by Russian worships, but it's it's mined in both by the Ukrainians and reportedly by the Russian. So it's a very complex maritime

problem and UH, to very quickly sketch it out. What we would do first is get rid of the minds. I think that's pretty obvious why I need to do that. And maybe some of the listeners can remember back to the nineteen eighties when Iran blockaded the Straight of hor Moves. What did the s do? Um, we got rid of the minds. We certainly have that technology or allies. There's a standing NATO mind sweeping task force that could be

sent up in the Black Sea to do this. We got rid of the minds in the nineteen eighties in the Arabian Gulf, and then we reflagged Kuwaiti tankers as US vessels, and then we escorted them, put a cruiser, a destroyer or a frigate alongside every one of them, provided air cover and simply drove them in and out and told the Iranians, in effect, don't even think about it,

and that solution could be applied here in Ukraine. And if we don't move in that direction pretty quickly, I think the consequences of global food security are quite dire. So I have a bunch of questions already. But maybe let let me start with the most pressing one. But would an escort of ships in the manner that you just described, would that not be seen as a provocation by Russia? Um? I think it would be seen as a provocation, And we have to ask ourselves, um, is

it sufficient the need to do this? Is it sufficient to accept the level of risk? Back to the book I just published, to Risk at All, That's exactly what I examine in the book, in a series of maritime case studies, is when are you willing to accept risk? And is it justified by your ability to mitigate the risk? And again we get rid of the minds. We put escorts with all these ships, and we also the marsh

we publish no tams again. I don't have to tell an odd locks audience what that is, um, And we tell the Russians yea at each other today overestimated NOIP. I'm sure the audience gets it. It's the hosts in this case you need to explain it, okay. Indeed, for our hosts, note TAM is a notice to mariners, and it is it can be published about a floating object that's become an obstruction, about newly discovered underwater formations UM, or about a missile shoot or a gun shoot that

enable worship is going to conduct. It's really just the equivalent of posting public notice of operations. So we would we would the marsh the Russians. What that means is go diplomat to diplomat, and we would issue no tams noticed mariners, which goes, if you will, mariner to mariner, worships to worships. The calculus then shifts over to the Russians.

And here you just have to put yourself in the shoes of the Russians and ask yourself, um, you know, in in the words of Clint Eastwood, are you feeling lucky today. I don't think the Russians would take a shot at a merchant ship escorted by a US warship, therefore highly defended doing a humanitarian mission taking grain to a starving world. I just don't see Russia taking that shot.

You know, there is obviously an incredible amount of hesitance about committing any sort of US anything that would resemble sort of like direct US military involvement. We're willing to send weapons and of course money to Ukraine, obviously, all of native well short of actually anything beyond that. But in your view, something like escorting a ship through the Black Sea or demining the area does not compose to

that at all. In your view, it does not. As follows, where we have drawn the red line as to US involvement is on the soil of the Ukrainian land or Russian soil. But here we're talking about neither of those. We're talking about international waters, so these ships would not be passing through Russian claimed waters at all. These would be international high seas. So I think that's a crucial difference and one that we would certainly articulate and be

very clear with the Russians. Look, we're not entering your territorial waters to conduct this mission. We're going into a Ukrainian port, but through international waters and of course through the Ukrainian territorial sea, with their permission. So I think

this passes the risk test. But I will also say, at this point, do we really need to worry about provoking Russia in the sense that they're the ones who have invaded this country with two hundred thousand troops, committed hideous war crimes, are refusing negotiations, and are blocking food from the rest of the world. I mean, at some point you just have to look a bully in the eye and say, no, your behavior is unacceptable. Here's what we're gonna do about it. I think we've hit that

point in this particular course of action. So one thing you mentioned in your writings on this topic is the idea of having to reflag the Ukrainian carriers to something else. Can you explain why that would need to be done. I actually don't think that is a crucial step. I think it ups the anti for Russia. But let's face it, as as this audience will know, um, there are many, many flags of convenience all around the seas of the world.

Many of these grain tankers are non Ukrainian. But it does alleviate one aspect of this, which is that, um, it would be Russia conceivably could say well, we're engaged in the special military operation. We're attacking Ukrainian targets. So we would say, okay, we'll take down the Ukrainian flag and put up really wouldn't have to be a U. S. Flag. It could be Panamanian, it could be Greek, it could be any nation willing to participate, could be any of the NATO nations. If NATO signed up to it. It

would just be quite streamlined. And this was the case in the operation Earnest Will in the nineteen eighties and the Arabian See. Um, it's just quicker you can put a U. S. Flag on it because the US government says, yep, we'll take that ship. Um. But is that crucial now? I don't think so. Um, So you and I don't think it would change the calculus. Particularly so you were part of that operation just Will in the late nineties eighties to get oil out of the street of Hermus.

Why do you describe your role in that operation and what made it successful? Um? My role was obviously that was many years ago, I was a very young lieutenant commander. I suppose I was in my late twenties, maybe thirty, and I was the operations officer on an Aegis cruiser USS Valley Forge, and and as the ops boss um, my job was to participate in all the planning that went into the operation, alongside the Admiral's flag staff and my equivalence from all the other ships that were in

the task force. So we would get together on the carrier and kind of sketch out the whole operation, would send it up the chain of command, it would get approved and come back. So step one for me was planning process, very deeply involved. And then in the execution phase, I was the tactical action officer on board the Valley Forge, effectively the officer on watch with the firing key. So if we were overflown by Iranian combat aircraft, I had

permission to shoot them down. If the Iranian small boats were to attack the tanker, I could engage them with our gun systems um Naturally, if if a situation like that developed, the Captain would come very quickly into the combat information center to make sure Lieutenant Commander Staffordis didn't

do anything foolish. But as as I described it, we would just sail right up through the straight of her moves and up the center of the Arabian golf and go up, and the tankers would load load oil up at the ports in Kuwait, and then would turn around and take them back down. And when we got him into the Indian Ocean and out of range of Iranian aircraft Iranian warships, we were able to uh cut the loose enough they would go. This was actually gonna be

my next question. So how far would a military escort for ships normally go to? You take them all the way to well, presumably you wouldn't take them all the way to their destination, but how do you decide when they're out of you know, the danger zone? Yeah, in in that particular situation, um, it was relatively easy to calculate by looking at Iranian military capability. Um, how far could their attack aircraft fly? How far did they typically

operate warships? Answer? In both cases not very far. In the case of Russia, I think safely speaking, we would escort them down through the Bosphorus and out the out of the Black Sea and into the A G and C. I think that's where you're gonna cut them loose. Again, highly unlikely in my view that Russia is going to

come after commercial shipping. Frankly, whether it's Ukrainian flag or not, but safe for sake of argument, we've reflagged UM and they're flying a U. S flag or a Danish flag from a NATO member, very unlikely Rush is gonna go any anywhere outside their zone of control, which is really the Northern Black Sea. More broadly, today, what are the existing either US or NATO resources that either have the best equipment or the best experience in working with the

safety and securing of commercial fleet. All of the NATO navies do this quite well, and most of the NATO nations have very capable coastguards, including obviously our own and again and odd lots. Audience will know well the close working relationship of the U. S. Coast Guard to merchant shipping. UM. That's replicated by the French Coastguard, the German Coastguard, the Danish Coastguard, and I think that UM, you could certainly

draw on that expertise. Finally, Tracy and Joe, I would say that UM, we have experienced doing this much more recently during the period of time when I was Supreme Allied Commander of NATO from two thousand nine and two thirteen, we were facing pirates off the coast of East Africa. This of course is the time of Captain Phillips who is captured from the Mayorsclabama, rescued by a very heroic navy operation. Frankly, one of the case studies in my book,

To Risk at All is about that operation. In that period of time, all of our navies worked very closely with the international shipping community, if you will, and I would go every few months to London to the International Maritime Organization, which functioned as a kind of umbrella over both the major shipping companies. So we had represented is there from all of them in the major navies that

were part of the counterpiracy. So we've got very recent experience working alongside our merchant marine colleagues, and frankly, that relationship is generally pretty comfortable. So can you actually talk a little bit more about these sort of day to

day relationship between the military and merchant carriers. And you know, I'm thinking Tracy to like about even some of these conversations that we had with Salton post already talked about this exactly where it's like, you know, what the FED was to the financial crisis, the military is going to

have to be the sort of global commodity crisis. But even before the sort of current acute tension, what is the sort of normal role that the U. S. Military or the Navy plays in just sort of the securing of the of the global trade that I guess we all take for grant. Yeah, I think the key phrase there, Joe is take for granted. And and we all of us, the global population kind of just feels as though there's

no problems out there. And yet as again as recently as within the decade, we saw organized, uh strongly land based pirate operations coming out of Somalia. Um we continue to see pretty vicious piracy in the Straits of Malacca, We see it off the coast of West Africa. We see kind of hints of it in and around the Caribbean at times. Um So piracy continues a second zone, and I always say the oceans in many ways of

the world's largest crime syne another major challenge. And you know, we tend to think of this as merchant ships, tankers, break bolt container ships, but how about the thousands and thousands of thousands of significant fishing craft that are out there. They are commercial and they are under assault. Frequently a lot of the pirates se is directed against them, and by the way, a lot of them are conducting illegal fishery activities, and some of that is state sponsored, by

the way. So that's a long way of saying there are many problems out there, and that's before we get into illegal dumping and pollution. Again, that's commercial activity that's going on out there, albeit illegal. So all of the world's navies and coast guards are are very focused on this and are working very closely both ashore with conferences and symposia and exchanging information and data sharing. UM we share immense amounts of data from US maritime centers, for example,

with commercial shipping companies, and they reciprocate. UM. It's a it's a very close and positive relationship. UM As as we all know, the coast guard has a bit of a different role, more law enforcement, so you know they're going to have a perhaps less of a warm and cozy relationship. UM. I think navies and commercial shipping are quite close and frankly had been back to the time of the ancient Greeks. So I knew your expertise is

on the shipping aspect for obvious reasons. But is there anything that we need to be done on the land side in order to get more grains to the ports so that they could then be escorted and exported to the rest of the world. Um, great question, Tracy. Um. First, we need to ensure that we're efficiently moving containers and cargoes in and out of these ports. And let's face it, we have a bit of a double whammy here in the sense that we're still just coming off COVID in

many places, we also are seeing very high inflation. It's impacting labor forces. We're facing a major strike. Los Angeles long Beaches were recording this and that's replicated around the world. As longshoreman, for example, are looking at rising inflation, they want to organize, they want to get more understandably so they can keep up with inflation. So we have to have efficient, well run ports that offer good compensation for the kind of quality work we need in those ports.

Uh Number two, we need to make sure the ports are safe and secure. We worked very hard in the during the period after nine eleven to create much more security around ports globally, and a lot of that is still in place, not unlike the implementation of the t s A regime in all the airports. Um we need to go back and relook at that security, I think,

and make sure that it meets today's needs. And then third we need uh to ensure that logistically we can go from these ports quickly and efficiently into the nations that are receiving. So in the military context we would say this is from port to fort, those railheads, those trucking systems, whatever, the means of cargo delivery is a whole secondary back office, if you will, where we at least here in the United States have some well documented

challenges as well. Like everything else in today's world, it's a big, complicated global supply chain, and when a portion of it is distended as it is now by the events in Ukraine on top of post COVID let's let's hope post COVID, on top of staggeringly high inflation, it's a very difficult moment for global shipping and it will have impact on on the grain in particular, and that I think is needs to be a key focus, very minor aside question is the military dealing also seeing a

labor shortage right now, like every like other entities are, we are seeing some pressure on our recruiting. Yes, and so for the first time in a long while. For example, the Army has extended the tours of its recruiters. Those are the men and women who you know are out in the field trying to convince high school seniors to come join the military. And the reason they're doing that is because they're facing pressure meeting their targets for all

the reasons we've talked about. And by the way, as in a side, it's important to know and this may surprise many people you know who tend to think, oh, well, you know, if I if I can't go to college or I don't want to go to college, I guess I'll just join the military. Um, it's hard to be accepted as a volunteer in the US military. Only about of high school seniors are eligible for military service. You've got to be a graduate. You've gotta have reasonably high grades,

you've got to be in essentially perfect health. You've got to have no drug use, no arrests. Going back to the challenge right now and Ukraine demining the water around Odessa or demining any water sounds extreme, sounds difficult. What does it take to do that? And what is the time frame for just that part to make it uh safe to move it? All? Right? So these are not floating minds. In other words, these are not minds that are just drifting all around. That's a much harder problem.

These are minds that are fixed to the bottom, and therefore you don't have to take them all out. You just got to take out enough so that you can drive a tanker up a channel. So you've got to d mine the channels. And that's a finite space that you have to do. Now, could could Russia do some dirty tricks and throw some floating minds in their conceivable, particularly if they felt they could do it without us knowing it. But we're watching for that. They know we're

watching for that. So let's let's take as an entering argument that you have to clear the channels. You have mind sweepers, and there are several classes of these, but there are ships that are devoted to this task and they're quite capable there. Uh. They have a very good sonar that can look into the water and find the mines and then they have a remotely operated apparatus that can go and neutralize it. I don't want to go into more detail than that, but our capability in this

regard is quite good. Um. We practice constantly. To clear a channel from Odessa into clear waters of the Black Sea would be a matter of some weeks. It certainly wouldn't be months and months. So one thing we've been talking about on all thoughts for the past couple of years now our supply chains and logistics, And it feels like the pandemic has really thrown into very sharp relief just how much those matter and how much they are

often taken for granted in the modern economy. And my understanding is that in military conflict there has always been an emphasis on supply chains and logistics because those are the things that can win or lose you wars. Can you talk a little bit more, just in general about the importance of supply chains to military conflict, I can Tracy um. An old saying in the military is that amateurs focus on the strategy. The professionals are looking at

the logistics. That the business equivalent of that expression is execution eats strategy for lunch, meaning logistics, right, and you know again, odd lots audience. UM, that's what we all do for a living, moving through these global supply chains and what we've discovered. And our logisticians are the very best in the world, full stop military logisticians. But they've

got a pretty controlled environment. And that sounds funny to say, right because they're they're dealing with war, but they're also dealing from stockpiles. They have UM, they have endless training, they constantly conduct, they have exquisite intelligence, UM, they can mitigate the combat risk quite effectively. The military logisticians do not have to face the big challenge that the global supply chains face, which is that it's kind of it's

all open source. It's it's in many ways it's market driven. It's not like these global shipping firms are getting together and training together and practicing together and our right a schedule that they're going to follow for the next ten years, which the military could do that because it has control over all these inputs in a way that big shipping

companies just don't have control over the inputs. And as a result of that, the kind of supply chain issues hurt badly because they hit a system that had already moved so far to the just in time principle that it was very vulnerable to these kind of distortions. And again, first it's COVID, then it's the war, and then now it's this rampant inflation. All that is severely distending these

global systems. It's going to require pre significant rewiring. I think, is there anything that private industry could learn from the military when it comes to managing supply chains. Well, I mentioned a couple of things. One is training. Another, there is information sharing with each other and with the government, and of course you know they're in competition and that's hard. But you know, look at the airlines on the issue

of maintenance and safety. They constantly work together and share information. Thirdly, and we talked about it already, work with the various governments, build those relationships. Fourthly, international organizations being part of shipping professional associations with which many of these are part of already, but also with the International Maritime Organization, for example in London,

be part of that kind of effort. Um, there's four or five ideas for you, Admirald James stever Is this was a real treat to hear your perspective in this sort of like deep knowledge that you have in this Thank you so much for coming on odd lots. It's my pleasure, and I'll just mention it one more time. New book out, a maritime book that I think this audience would really like to risk at all nine conflicts and the cruciabil of decision about making decisions under extreme

pressure in real risk. I definitely want to read it now because just hearing you sort of like walk through the sort of you know, the operation risk and the decision making and the difficulties really fascinating. And I'm definitely going to check out the mar Thank you for coming out,

you know, Tracy. Just even beyond the acute crisis that we're facing with the war in Ukraine and the commodity shortage in particular food, the role that the U. S Military or that military plays in normal times just sort of keeping the global trade operations going is definitely something

that we haven't discussed much, oh totally. So I think when someone says, oh, We're going to have a military escort for a bunch of ships carrying grain out of Ukraine, I think a lot of people their knee jerk reaction is like, oh, this is a big you know, departure or what the military normally does. But actually a lot of policing on the seas is done by the military, like someone has to keep those trade routes safe, and

typically it's the military. Yeah. No, And obviously, you know, as he mentioned, there's piracy or criminality or his line is that the oceans are the biggest primacy in the world. So this is always going on. And now, of course there's this acute issue of can we get grain out of Ukraine? Can the blockade be broken? Can it be broken in a way such that it doesn't dangerously escalate conflict?

And I have to say I still have some reservations about whether you could do that without provoking a response from Russia. But you know, I also appreciate the admiral's statement that, well, you know, they're the aggressor, so maybe we shouldn't worry so much about the response. There are the aggressor, and it's an international waters and it's not necessarily an offensive operation to simply escort a ship carrying grain.

So it's an interesting idea. And of course, as you know, he it's a it is a crisis, the global food crisis, and it's been done before or at least something analoguess, such as the operation that he was part of. All right, shall we leave it there, Let's leave it there. This has been another episode of the All Thoughts podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me on Twitter at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisn'tal. You can follow me on Twitter at the Stalwart. Follow our guest, Admiral James Steve

ritz He's at Steve Rita's JA. He's also the author of the new book To Risk at All, Nine Conflicts in the Cruci Bold of Decision. Follow our producer Kerman Rodriguez at Carmen Armann. Followed the Bloomberg head of podcast, Francesca Leavy at Francisco Today. And check out all of our podcasts Bloomberg under the handle at podcasts. Thanks for listening to