Kari Odermann
Hi there. It’s CEPA fellow Kari Odermann. Welcome to the CEPA podcast, where we bring together leaders and experts from both sides of the Atlantic to explore the biggest challenges shaping our world today. We hope you enjoy the episode.

Alina Polyakova
Hello. I’m Dr Alina Polyakova, President and CEO of the Center for European Policy Analysis. Thank you so much, Kari, for introducing the podcast, and I’m so delighted to be here today for this very special conversation with a leading voice in national security and a key figure in shaping America’s role in global defense policy and diplomacy, Congressman Jason Crow, representing Colorado’s sixth congressional district. Welcome to the CEPA podcast.

Jason Crow
Thank you for having me. It’s, it’s great to have my inaugural appearance.

Alina Polyakova
We’re delighted to have you. For those of you who don’t know Congressman Crow, you should. He is a US Army veteran, a former attorney, and as I mentioned, a leading voice on security in the US Congress, serving currently both in the House Armed Services and Intelligence Committees. Congressman Crow, or Jason, if I may, has been at the forefront of really helping I think all of us here in Washington and even beyond Washington, really think through some of the most pressing international security and foreign policy issues facing our country and facing all of our alliances across the world. So, Jason, it’s great to have you again. I thought before we go into all of the wonky policy things that I really want to talk about, being a big policy nerd myself, I wanted to hear a little bit more from you about you, because I think that’s always a really interesting background story how people end up serving in the US Congress, how you end up deciding to run for a congressional seat. I know you grew up in the great state of Wisconsin, coming from humble, modest roots in a working class family, much like myself, an immigrant family, but you eventually decide to join the US Army. You become a US Ranger. You serve three tours in combat in Afghanistan, Iraq, of course, thank you for your service, your military service to our country, and for your service still as a member of Congress. But can you talk just a little bit about, you know, your, how you grew up, and how that shaped your decision making, whether that was to join the US military. I’m sure that wasn’t an easy decision. We know how difficult that is for, you know, our countrymen and women in uniform. And then what happened after you left the military. How did you end up now being a member of the US Congress for the last six years?

Jason Crow
Yeah, well, let’s just say that being a member of Congress isn’t, was not the likely outcome of my path, and I wasn’t in high school yearbooks being voted, you know, the most likely to be president or an elected official by any stretch, you know, but, but here I am. It’s been a non-linear path for me, you know. I grew up, as you said, in kind of a modest, working class family and background, and I actually, when I finished high school, I did well in school and got into college, but my family didn’t have money to pay for it, so I started working. I was working in construction for my first few years of college, and saw a billboard ,this was in Wisconsin, one of those billboards that talk about National Guard service, and it was one weekend a month, two weeks in the year, we’ll pay for your college tuition. This was before 9/11 so we weren’t yet at war at the time, that seemed like a great deal. So I took a semester off. I went to basic training, and I became a private, you know, lowest ranking enlisted soldier in the army, and was doing the National Guard thing, which allowed me to work less and focus more on on school. And I discovered that I actually loved that time. I loved wearing the uniform, loved the flag on my shoulder. Really got a lot out of being part of a team and being there, and it was National Guard weekends, being a part of something bigger than myself. And I was kind of surprised by that, so I joined ROTC and was going to become an officer. 9/11 happened, and I just knew that when we were going to war, that I didn’t want other people to do my fighting for me. So I actually asked for a transition from a National Guard contract to an active duty contract, and I was the the Distinguished Military Graduate of my ROTC class, so that the top graduate of my class, and I got to choose my own assignment. I could choose where and when I served, and in my very infinite wisdom, as a 23 year old, I chose infantry and airborne training and ranger training and assignment with 82nd airborne division, and found myself very quickly at the tip of the spear and leading a platoon of paratroopers in the invasion of Iraq, and ultimately went into special operations later, and became an army ranger as part of the Joint Special Operations Task Force in Afghanistan as well. So that’s my early time. And during that period, my love for our country grew, my love for Americans grew, and I always say that I don’t find that inconsistent with also understanding that our country is not perfect, that we have so many unfulfilled promises that we have not yet met that highest ideal of a more perfect union, and we strive towards that. Yet, I also love the things that we do do well, and I love the the American spirit pretty deeply, and that led me in 2017 to decide to run for Congress and try to flip a seat in the House during that campaign to retake the House majority, and found myself running in a seat that nobody thought I could win until I did. So here I am.

Alina Polyakova
Well, thank you for just giving us a feel for where you’re coming from, you know, I want to just follow up on thinking through your your military service. And, you know, having been, as you said, in the sort of the tip of the spear, right, of US, how the US interacts with the world, right? That’s, of course, our hard power, military capability. And I think for generations, you know, our country has been really debating, what is the role of hard power? What is the role of the US military capability, which is the greatest military in the world, and it’s a force that we, I think, want to use carefully. Of course, I think most people would agree with that, but there’s been a debate. I think most of the 20th century has continued to the 21st century about when should the US engage, for what reason, right? When does it make sense to commit US lives? You served, you know, bravely and courageously with so many others in our wars in the Middle East. And I just wonder how you think about that question. Where do you land on this debate between, you know, US, US using its military power to affect change in the world, like, when is that appropriate? How do you think about that really big philosophical question?

Jason Crow
Yeah, well, you know, I think about it using a couple of the most formative experiences in my life, and a few of those are growing up in a modest, working class family in upper midwest. First 10 years of my life were spent in a very small rural town in southern Wisconsin, less than 15,000 people, an industrial town, or at least it used to be, until the industries died out and the town lost its economic base. And many of my family, by the way, were very conservative, and remain very conservative, you know, kind of Catholic conservative, upper Midwestern voters, folks. And that’s, that’s where I’m from. That’s the first lens, and through that lens, I understand the deep frustrate frustration from so many Americans about the unfulfilled promise of the American dream, how the American Dream is dead to so many Americans, right? And you know, when we counteract things like isolationism, when we counteract things like investment in foreign policy and foreign aid and humanitarian support. I understand how visceral that feeling of being left behind for so many Americans is, and how compelling to some folks that that that you know, that message that, hey, you know we we shouldn’t be doing anything outside of the country until we take care of our own. On its face, that’s a compelling message, but when you get below that and you actually see that, you know, the investments in our relationships and our economic partnerships and global security actually bears on our economic security and the times we’ve been most prosperous and our middle class has been the strongest is when we’ve been the most engaged effectively, effective engagement. And I always draw a distinction between that effective engagement and ineffective engagement. That’s number one. The second lens is as a private you know, I used to be at the very receiving end of US policy. You know, there’s nobody who has less control, but who’s impacted the most by our national security than, you know, an army private that just has to carry out the orders and the policies and has no, really no say in those policies. And now I’m on the other end of the spectrum making policy in Washington. So I think often about, you know that private, Private Crow and the other privates and airmen and marines and and soldiers around the world who are on the receiving end and have to actually do the thing. You know, when people pound their chest and talk tough in Washington, in saber rattle, somebody’s child, somebody’s son or daughter or brother or sister, usually from a rural place that nobody’s heard of, has to pick up a rifle or get into a tank or get into a helicopter and go out and do the thing. And I think a lot about that, and I take that charge very seriously. Then, you know, the third is, you know, as an officer, because I later became an army officer and finished my career as a captain in Iraq and Afghanistan, and experiencing the inherent limitations of our military power. You know, we have this, this great, tremendous military and frankly, we have a history of not using it the right way and not having restraint on the use and you know, the history I think, of effective foreign policy goes hand in hand with restraint. We are the most effective when we recognize what we’re capable of doing and what we’re not capable of doing when we exercise restraint in certain circumstances. And I found myself as a as a lieutenant, an infantry officer that was trained to fight wars, basically being the mayor, the fire chief, the city engineer, a sanitation worker, doing everything in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we just weren’t equipped to do it and get the job done. And I saw security dissolve over time and all of those places because we were being asked to do something that we weren’t resourced and equipped and trained to do. And we saw the consequences of that.

Alina Polyakova
Thank you for that. That was a really meaningful, I think, and thoughtful answer, you know, and I could pick up on a lot of those questions, but I thought maybe we could fast forward now into the present day where, of course, there are many conflicts across the world where the US has been involved for years or has an ability to affect change on the ground, hopefully in a thoughtful way. Of course, the one I am most often thinking about, and that you and I have talked about, is Russia’s war against Ukraine. And you have been a very prominent and an advocate for Ukraine’s fighting for freedom. But of course, to your comments just now, what’s really happening on the front line in Ukraine is brutal. It’s brutal war where, you know, young men and women, Ukrainians are getting killed, and the Russians are also getting killed, but they’re the aggressor here, of course, why have you been such an advocate for Ukraine? We have, as the United States, provided billions of security assistance military equipment to Ukraine for 10, over 10 years, we trained Ukraine’s military after Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and the war doesn’t seem like there’s a clear end in sight, unfortunately, despite many, many efforts by this administration and last administration as well to bring it to an end, mainly because Putin doesn’t want to bring it to an end. So how do you think about US engagement? You talk about effective engagement. Why is what’s happening in Ukraine important? Not just to you, but why do you think it’s important to the United States, or should it be important to the United States?

Jason Crow
Well, you know, we’re in an era where having nuanced and sophisticated conversations about any topic, including foreign policy, is very hard to do [unintelligible] paints everything with a very broad stroke. But we have to be good enough and smart enough to actually be able to look at individual cases and know whether it’s an investment and an engagement that we should make. You know, I was a proponent of ending the war in Afghanistan, and the last administration did that, and I was critical about the manner in which they did that. But I thought, you know, we, for a long time, that we should have pulled back and reduced our intervention in the Middle East, broadly speaking. At the same time, I also believe that additional engagement in Europe and engagement in Ukraine, in particular, is an investment and engagement worth making, undoubtedly, right? And I think about this from a people centered perspective and an American people focused perspective. I think about what do my constituents, because my fundamental responsibility, every member of Congress’s responsibility, at its core, is to serve your constituents, like that’s where the analysis begins and ends. So I think about it in that frame. And I think about the the fact that Europe was our number one trading partner. I think about the fact that when we pull back from the world, and there’s war and conflict in Europe, that eventually that war reaches our doorstep, right? History is very, very clear on this point, that when the US pulls back and isolates itself from conflict in Europe, eventually that, that bill comes due, and the longer we ignore it, and the more we ignore it, the bigger that bill becomes, in blood and in treasure. And I like to learn from history. I think we ignore it at our peril, and I don’t want to keep on relearning really hard lessons over and over and over again. And that’s the lesson that is very clear to me. So, economically, it’s important. From a security standpoint, it’s important. From a food security standpoint, it’s important. And I have no qualms whatsoever to go to my constituents and say, for less than 3% of the annual defense budget, we are helping to kneecap one of the largest militaries in the world, of our adversary that constantly threatens our troops and our security around the world. We are solidifying a democracy that will be a trading partner, a technology partner and a security partner, and we are helping secure Europe, which, of course, is fundamental to our economy and to our jobs and to the American way of life. And that is a value proposition that I think is a hell of a good investment for American taxpayer dollars.

Alina Polyakova
Well, I’m, I couldn’t agree more. That’s very much, I think, in line with the arguments and the analysis that we have been doing at the Center for European Policy Analysis for a long time, kind of making that value investment case, but also recognizing the reality that, we know that what happens in Europe doesn’t stay in Europe. Europe is our biggest trade partner, people forget that, and so we have a Europe that is robbed by instability, insecurity, and war, that’s going to weaken us in our global position, not just from a security perspective, from an economic perspective. And I think we forget that, just how deeply intertwined the two continents are for generations. But, you know, on Ukraine, we’re three and a half years into this war. There have been many predictions about Ukraine losing, Russia winning, you know, the imbalance and manpower military capability. Europe and the US have been supporting Ukraine from a humanitarian perspective, security perspective, but it just doesn’t seem like anything has been enough to bring a decisive win for Ukraine, certainly, nor a decisive win or defeat for Russia. So it feels very much like we’re in a war of attrition.

Jason Crow
Yeah.

Alina Polyakova
Do you agree with that assessment, and what do you think needs to happen now to change the dynamics? Because obviously this is not sustainable for the long term.

Jason Crow
Yeah. Well, I, the last administration did a lot, but I also was critical of the last administration’s, what I perceived to be a fairly risk averse approach to providing support. And you think about somebody, you have to always view this to the context of what is the adversary doing and thinking, what is the mentality? And, Alina, as you know better than anybody, you’re an expert on this, but I also have been paying attention to this for years through the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee and through my other contacts, we know so much about Vladimir Putin. He’s been around for decades. We know his playbook very well. And with somebody like Vladimir Putin, who preys on weakness and indecisiveness and understands only power and strength, risk aversion actually can create its own risk. And you know, Ben Hodges referred to this dynamic as self deterrence, right? That we can become so risk averse that we kind of create our own deterrence effect, and we do less that’s actually then creating risk by our adversaries. And you saw this play out, right? Had we, had we been willing to do more earlier, I think we’d be in a very different position. Ukraine would be in a very different position on the battlefield than they are now. In almost every decisive moment where we decided to do more for military aid or provide new systems, whether it’s stingers or patriots or M1 Abrams tanks or F 16-fighters, or authorization for cross border strikes or providing intelligence, just to name a few. And there are many other examples. It was bipartisan effort in Congress that actually cleared out the space and pushed the administration to do that. And it often took six to nine months in each of those instances to create out the create that, that pressure from the Hill before they would do it, so that that’s that’s passed. I think there were some missed opportunities there, but here we are now and it’s a very challenging situation, a much more challenging situation with this Administration cutting off aid and sending mixed signals that, frankly, Vladimir Putin takes advantage of in every every possible way, right? And Vladimir Putin understands only power and only pressure. He doesn’t care what people think, doesn’t care what people say, doesn’t care what people tweet. What he cares about is economic pressure, diplomatic pressure in the form of isolation, and military defeat. Those are the three things that he really fears the most, and we know that well. And unless those three things are brought to bear on him to create power or create pressure, he has no reason to change.

Alina Polyakova
You’re talking as if you read an article I wrote at the end of last year called Maximum Pressure on Russia as a way to win those wars, something along those lines. So I’m glad, if you haven’t read it, that we align on this, you know. But like just taking back to what you were you just landed. You know, the big conversation that’s been happening in Europe because, of course, Russia’s war against Ukraine is, there’s a bigger picture there by European security writ large. It, of course, is about our security, because we’re a NATO member state, and we have committed to collective defense. There’s an attack on one of our NATO allies, and of course, Ukraine borders a large number of NATO allies and there’s a real profound fear that the word will spill over militarily, it’s already spilled over in non conventional ways to Europe through attacks on critical infrastructure, sabotage, and assassinations by the Russian intelligence agencies. But we’re not in a conventional military confrontation yet, but the risk seems to be growing the longer the war goes on, and the longer that Putin feels that he has a kind of an open field to play, right? Because he’s not getting stopped by force, which is the only thing that Russia historically has ever been stopped by is just brute force on the battlefield, in combination with the kinds of pressures you described in the economy and political spaces. But you know, I just wonder to go back to your earlier comments about, you know, restraint, right, and being thoughtful about how we use our treasure and, most notably, our blood in the United States. Is there still a reality, three and a half years into this war, in which we can have a secure peace that is long-lasting and durable in Ukraine without US presence on the ground?

Jason Crow
Well, there’s undoubtedly always a path to peace. I believe that firmly. But peace requires moral clarity, it requires a plan, and it requires us coming from it from a position of strength. And if any of those things are lacking, then our adversaries and those who wish to undermine peace will always do so, right, in the places we’ve always been the most successful. You look at the history of American foreign policy, and it’s those three elements that when they’re brought to bear, that we are the most successful, and we’re lacking most of those right now. I don’t necessarily think that boots on the ground in Ukraine are necessary for peace. I don’t think we should take that off the table. And what I mean by that, I don’t mean direct military intervention in this conflict, I’m talking about in terms of long term security guarantees. Like I don’t believe, I’ve said this from day one, and believe this today, that we shouldn’t be directly involved in this conflict. We can continue, can and should continue to provide intelligence, economic support, military support, and diplomatic support, but security guarantees are a different question. And I think you look at, you know, Europe right now, and the bottom line is, the rest of NATO in Europe is not in a position of strength to provide those guarantees. And this is, this is true, and this is a reality that not a lot of people like to hear, but a lot of our European partners are not in the position, they have allowed their defense and their security infrastructure to atrophy because they’ve existed under the US security umbrella for decades, and they’ve allowed those capabilities to atrophy, and now they’re not in a position to guarantee that peace themselves. That is the short-term reality. Now the long-term reality, of course, is we need to continue to put pressure on them, and this is an area in which I actually do agree with the Administration, and the last too, actually, the last did this as well. This is not a partisan issue for Europe to increase their spending, to increase their own capability, because over 80% of NATO resources come from the United States, and there are very few NATO partners that actually are capable of conducting independent military operations without essential US support. And that’s not okay. That’s not an okay position to be in. At the same time, I think it’s also important to point out that when it comes to Ukraine aid, United States is not number one, right? There are 13 countries, I think now, that have actually provided more support per capita than the United States has, right? So there are certainly some countries that are punching way above their weight and doing a lot, right, and that’s really important to highlight. But the short-term reality is, is the United States is an essential player here.

Alina Polyakova
Yeah. I mean, absolutely. Europe is committing a lot more to defense, as we know, huge commitment of 5%, which is higher than what we’re spending as a percentage of GDP on our defense. And we mentioned earlier that you are serving currently in the Armed Services Committee in the House, as well as Intelligence Committee. And one of the questions that, you know, we often get, I often get from Europeans, is, okay, we’ve committed to 5% but your defense spending as a percent of GDP has been going down. So, you know, is that something that you discuss in the Committee, right? I mean, the House has the control to purse strings, right? Where do you like, where is the current conversation in Congress about how we build and maintain, you know, military innovation, military dominance in the world without spending more necessarily, is that, is that really where the conversation is that we don’t want to spend more, but yet we want to maintain our dominant position? How do you do those things together, and maybe as a connected point to that, how do you actually think about the role of the Intelligence Committee, in particular, since you serve on both I think the Intelligence Committee is often one that, if people know about the Committee out there, seems like the most mysterious one, right? So —

Jason Crow
It is mysterious [unintelligble] nothing publicly, right?

Alina Polyakova
I know you can’t tell us what you guys are talking about in the classified space, but can you also give us a feel for how, maybe, the information you get by being part of the Intelligence Committee also informs your thinking about how we should be thinking about, as a country, as a government, about these other questions around defense and security and how the US can maintain our dominant edge.

Jason Crow
Yeah, well, a couple of elements here. First is there’s a difference between making a commitment and fulfilling the commitment. There are a lot of countries that have made the commitment to meet their their their goals, and, for a very long time, have not met those commitments. So, it should just be about who’s meeting the commitment. That sets number one. Number two is, I just, I understand the Wales commitment, you know, the 3% and additional commitments beyond that, to go to five, but it’s actually a pretty lazy way to think about security spending and resourcing, they just come up with this percent. And I know you have to have some standard, it has to be some standard or goal to shoot towards, but I think it’s a pretty lazy way of thinking about it that just you’re going to set a percent of of GDP, and that’s how you’re going to measure your security. It should be measured in capability, right? And you should be asking yourself, what capability do you need to be able to do the things that are necessary to keep your country safe and to maintain your alliance obligations. And that doesn’t necessarily equate to a dollar amount, right? We have an almost $1 trillion defense budget now, and I will say, without a doubt, that we are not effectively spending that money, right? There is 10s of billions of dollars that are being spent on antiquated defense systems, on legacy systems, on things that our war fighters are not even asking for anymore, because our procurement and acquisition system, the system that the government uses to acquire weapons and technology, is vastly outdated and inefficient. So, I kind of presumptively bristle at these, you know, dollar amounts and these caps, because it has allowed these deficiencies to continue and for us to not to have an outcome based assessment of what it is we’re shooting towards. So that’s, you know, that’s kind of my general view of how do we measure this. And then, on the intel front, you know, I’m in my third term on the Intelligence Committee. It’s one of the more unique committees in Congress, because we are charged with receiving information, we basically, we’re read in on everything, like we see everything the US government’s doing and what our allies are doing and all information, and we have the unique role of being charged with overseeing everything from our covert action programs to our most sensitive intelligence programs, but also our classified intelligence budget, which only the Intelligence Committee sees and approving that budget, so we get a whole look. And I, in my time in Congress, I’ve served on the Foreign Affairs Committee, the Armed Services Committee and the Intelligence Committee, so, I’ve been able to get a 360 view of our foreign policy and national security infrastructure and how our government does its work. And I can say that the intelligence spaces is one of the most important, if not the most, and there is tremendous room for growth, because I look at our decisive strength, and our decisive strength isn’t necessarily the number of aircraft carrier battle groups that we have, but it’s our alliances, our partnership and our alliance networks are the envy of the world and the envy of our adversaries, and it’s our intelligence capability that brings to bear a lot of the most important aspects of those relationships that I think we can really invest in in the future.

Alina Polyakova
Well, I’m not going to keep you here forever. I could keep peppering you the questions about international affairs, but now’s the time for a very controversial set of rapid fire questions that you didn’t know [beforehand).

Jason Crow
The lightning round? Okay.

Alina Polyakova
The lightning round. And I’m telling you, these are probably gonna be the most divisive questions that I’ve asked you. You ready?

Jason Crow
I’m ready.

Alina Polyakova
Okay, dogs or cats?

Jason Crow
You know, an elected official cannot answer that question, Alina.

Alina Polyakova
I told you they’re going to be divisive.

Jason Crow
That is divisive. They’re both wonderful. And my children both have both dogs and cats, and as a matter of fact, they also have a very non-divisive cat, and that is, we have a pet tiger salamander, which often is underappreciated, but salamanders are one of the best pets anybody can have. So, you know, there is a third way here.

Alina Polyakova
A third way.

Jason Crow
You don’t have to weigh in to the age old battle of dogs and cats. We can go with the salamander route, which is, you know, oft overlooked.

Alina Polyakova
Well, this is, this is a test of your diplomatic skills, so you passed the first one very well. Third way, I’ll make a note of that. Vodka or beer?

Jason Crow
Vodka. That I have no, I have no trepidation whatsoever taking a hard position there.

Alina Polyakova
Okay.

Jason Crow
That is not very hard for me, because I love dirty vodka martinis as well.

Alina Polyakova
My next question is: favorite cocktail?

Jason Crow
When I do whiskey – yes, it definitely is. When I do whiskey, I do I usually do it in old fashioned form, and then I am a vodka person, not a gin person, which I know is, is kind of a hot take, because it’s, it’s a, it’s really popping. Gin is really popular right now, and everyone you know, everyone a little bit younger than me, is doing gin, but I’m sticking with vodka.

Alina Polyakova
Okay, that’s commitment. I could ask you more controversial questions on vodka, but I won’t. All right, fries or potato chips?

Jason Crow
Ooh, cheese fries, truffle fries, or just regular fries versus potato chips. And what type of potato chips, like barbecue or salt and vinegar.

Alina Polyakova
Well, you take your pick. Open ended question.

Jason Crow
All right, okay.

Alina Polyakova
Desert island – what do you, what would you rather have?

Jason Crow
Well, I mean, I’m from Wisconsin, so I’m a sucker for a good plate of cheese fries. And when I do potato chips, I usually like barbecue, but you know, it’s hard to beat a good plate of cheese fries.

Alina Polyakova
Okay, very good, cheese fries. Noted. Least controversial question, motor transport, SUV, motorcycle, or public?

Jason Crow
Oh.

Alina Polyakova
The third way.

Jason Crow
It has to be an SUV, it can’t be like a regular car?

Alina Polyakova
These are random questions that I just made.

Jason Crow
How about scooter? How about scooter, I like scootering.

Alina Polyakova
Okay, so scooter above all?

Jason Crow
Yes, when I have —

Alina Polyakova
On of those scooters you stand on?

Jason Crow
I will jump on a scooter to try to get around, because I believe that I look very cool on scooters, even though I’ve been told repeatedly by my team that I do not. But you know that the biggest, the biggest lies, are those that we tell to ourselves, I guess.

Alina Polyakova
Well, who allowed you to live in that beautiful illusion?

Jason Crow
When I’m on a scooter, I have this like vision of, like the flight of Valkyries, like playing in the background, and like, the wind through, wind through my hair and, like, you know, my but, you know, it’s a whole thing. Scooter, if it’s available. Otherwise, you know, SUV, I guess.

Alina Polyakova
Just car. Okay, fine.

Jason Crow
Yeah.

Alina Polyakova
You needed less specific [unintelligible]. Well, that completes the lightning round. I think —

Jason Crow
It wasn’t that bad, it wasn’t that bad.

Alina Polyakova
— diplomatic tests, you know, try to keep these controversial but fun. I literally just made them up as we were talking, so, but thank you for your time, not to take away from I think all the important, thoughtful things you said on foreign policy, there’s certainly a lot more to do when Congress is back in session this fall, I look forward to continuing to work with you and supporting US efforts to bring the war in Ukraine to a just and durable end, and it’s certainly something that I think we all should be working towards. It’s what we should be very much supporting Ukraine, Ukraine’s fight for freedom. It’s in our national security interest, as you said. And I think sending that message to your folks at home, when you, when you’re back at home in Colorado, is really, really important, because people do forget what warnreally looks like in practice. And I can’t think of anybody better than you to remind us of that of that reality and, again, thank you for your time today. Thank you for your service in the US Congress. Thank you for your service to this country in uniform. And look forward to keeping up the conversation. Thanks.

Jason Crow
Yeah, thanks Alina, enjoyed it. I’d love to do it again. And you’re right about Ukraine. They are, they are the victim here. Nobody wants peace more than Ukrainians, and it is time to step this up and make sure that we’re standing by them. So thanks for having me.

Alina Polyakova
Thank you, and please do come back. I’m sure we have lots more to talk over the next couple of months. And until then, thank you everyone for joining me for the CEPA podcast with Congressman Jason Crow from Colorado’s sixth congressional district. It’s been a fascinating conversation. I hope all of you have taken the time to absorb that Congressman Crow is neither a dog or a cat person, but a salamander person, which is my big takeaway from this podcast. And many more conversations coming with other members of Congress and other interesting experts in the international security and foreign policy space in the months and years ahead. So thanks everyone, and goodbye.

Kari Odermann
If you enjoyed listening, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. You can find us on Apple podcast, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. And to dive deeper into the issues shaping transatlantic policy, visit cepa.org, where you’ll find more expert analysis and research. And don’t forget, you can find us all across social media for the latest updates, thought leadership, and exclusive content. Thanks for listening.