PUTIN’S RUSSIA: INSIDE OR OUTSIDE THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER? An evening with Stephen Kotkin

Madame Monsieur merci beaucoup de votre Toshio monsieur le ministre sand gentleman's madam my monsieur she has a me bonsoir syb avenue new sample Emma Ravi de votre presence my name is Margaret Huber and it's my pleasure as president of the Canadian International councils national capital branch and be on behalf of our partners the International Development Research Centre the Sheraton Ottawa AV Canada and CPAC the Canadian public affairs channel to warmly welcome you all at this our first signature event for 2018 special welcome to our guest speakers professor Stephen Kotkin from Princeton and Piatt Duty ebbets from Carleton they will be introduced at greater length by former ambassador Bob Hague for those of you who haven't yet had a chance to read the online description in our event announcement tonight's talk will be moderated by Bob Hague organizer of tonight's panel as a diplomat Bob served as director general for Europe and for legal affairs he was Canada's ambassador to Hungary and Slovenia he trained in law at University College London is a fellow with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute an executive fellow with the University of Calgary School of Public Policy before I invite Bob tonight's moderator to more formally introduce our wonderful speakers let me say a few words about the national capital branch because although I'm very pleased to see a lot of familiar faces I'm also delighted that so many of you here tonight are new to our activities through a dedicated team of volunteers the CICS national capital branch offers our members and guests access to a wide range of distinguished Speakers policy experts and influencers shaping the world's debates and discussions on global trade and economic issues and I know we've got some wonderful experts in that area here tonight like Jon REEP but also on security politics and other compelling topics once again thanks to our wonderful speakers we have tonight convened an amazingly diverse group of participants I hope that during the networking reception you had a chance to chat as with as many as possible of the other in 10 D attendees including distinguished colleagues current and past practitioners representatives of NGOs think tanks business and many foreign diplomats leading academics and most importantly students who will be taking up the reins in this organization and in our society very soon in fact special thanks to all the youth who are already served on our board and organizing quite a few of the activities I should also mention that at the end of tonight's panel and after what will be doubtless a very lively Q&A there will be a formal thanks on all our behalf by the very distinguished James Taylor and thank you again for undertaking that for us but in conclusion for those of you who are not yet members of the CICS national capital branch and for those of you who already are actually let me mention a few of the upcoming events organised by national capital branch members tomorrow evening for example there will be a student organized annual event called Career Expo with the attendance of current and past practitioners volunteer professionals and students interested in international related careers speed-dating for those about to join the job market on Monday January 22nd just as an example the Mid East study group will be holding a strategic planning meeting at the Institute on governance to map out more in their series of exciting events the following day the Asia Pacific study group will be focusing on digital Bangladesh and other events coming up are very much in the work work stay tuned keep looking at our website from time to time and don't do de lille don't delete our messages to you announcing upcoming events because those of you who are on our distribution list can certainly stay on top of what is coming down the pike even if you are not yet members but I should also like to stay and before I turn it over to Bob Hague let me pause in homage to Paul Durant who passed away at the year-end he was former chair of a lot of our Latin American and Caribbean study group he specialized in Latin America in a long career not only in Africa but particularly in Latin America and the Caribbean working with sida working with Foreign Affairs a ambassador to many countries in Latin America he after retirement was very generous in the time that he gave the Canadian International Council that he gave to students and young professionals just starting out on their career he will very much be missed by us all and we are grateful to the service that he and people like him have given to this organization so on that note let me ask Bob Hague someone we are also very grateful for to begin tonight's panel thank you [Applause] Thank You Margaret for such a warm introduction I'll I'll introduce our two speakers I wanted to do something what we used to call in foreign affairs I worked there for 38 years under its various names a scene setter I'll take you back to Paris in 1980s where I was posted and one of my it was a very tense time for those of you that didn't live through the Cold War half of my career in those 38 years was spent during doing that during the Cold War and at that particular time in the 80s it's might be forgotten now the Russians put missiles on the western border of the of the Warsaw Pact and needle retaliated with us Pershing missiles facing them in a bit of a stalemate it was a very tense period and during that time I had the opportunity of meeting Robert Ford who was Canada's renowned ambassador to Moscow he had been posted there for 18 years and he took his retirement in France and one of my duties very happy duty was keeping in touch with him he he was so well known that when George Shultz became President Reagan's Secretary of State he specifically asked for a personal briefing from Robert Ford and the Canadian government was only too happy to fly him to Washington to do that I asked him at one time when the Soviet Union would end when would it collapse that was about 1988 and he said never he said the system of repression in that country is so complete that I cannot envisage it ever ending and of course three years later it did collapse I remember at that time and it's maybe an apocryphal story the president George Bush said the CIA told me everything I needed to know about the USSR except when it would end now why not everybody inside and outside the USSR was thrilled and I'm thinking of the debate that went on about reuniting the two Germany's I think it's fair to say that the West engaged and wanted Russia inside the international order and the topic for the discussion tonight as you've seen this Putin's Russia inside or outside the international order the West worked very hard to bring Russia inside that order and NATO the EU the United States and Canada spent millions perhaps billions of dollars during that period of about following the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991 on diplomatic Adsit or a development assistance training exchanges trade and investment missions in Canada joined the g7 partners in adding Russia to the club in 1997 and welcoming president Boris Yeltsin to the g8 at his 1998 meeting when Yeltsin gave way to President Putin the second George Bush famously said I looked the man in the eye and I found it found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy I was able to get a sense of his soul now things didn't go so happily after that nothing to do with his boot and soul but there was a period of tension between the west and Russia and then President Obama arrived in 2009 and he said he was prepared to push the reset button to restore relations with Russia and you'll remember at the meeting between Secretary Clinton and her Russian counterpart mr. Lavrov she actually presented him with a button and it said on it reset but the Russian word that they put on which they thought was equivalent said overload in February 2014 President Putin welcomed 88 nations to the Sochi Winter Olympic Games the most expensive Olympics in history and just a few days afterwards Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed the Crimea the first time a European nation had done and annexed another European nation since World War two Putin remains and then is now a new American president Donald Trump who also has Russia very much on his mind so where did the West go wrong where where its leaders naive about Putin and the country he leads is Russia a Petro state and economic decline with an elderly with an older shrinking population still a player on the international stage its access in propping up the criminal Assad regime in Syria might say it is his Canada's vision of Russia as an Arctic partner permanently on ice I am pleased to turn these and other questions you may have to our two speakers so I'd ask them to come to the platform and as they do I'll introduce both of them Steven Cochran is the berkland professor of history and international affairs of Princeton University where he directs the Princeton Institute for international and regional studies his essays and reviews appear in foreign affairs and The Wall Street Journal amongst other publications he is just published and you can see it at the back and and he'd be pleased to autograph it for you Stalin waiting for Hitler 1929 in 1941 and has just been published by penguin the New York Times Book Review said quote it will surely stand for years to come as a seminal account of some of the most devastating events of the 20th century it will also whet appetites for Volume three so we wait in anticipation that Pierre Trudeau kovitch is president is professor of political science and the director of the Center for governance and public policy at Carleton University in Ottawa is the author and editor chief of 13 books including mapping a new world order the rest beyond the west the view from within democracy vs. modernization Russia the challenges of transformation he has also received two doctorates Onis Koza and as a member of the Valdai discussion group which has annual meetings with President Putin and he is seen met mr. Putin on 13 separate occasions so I'd ask you to welcome our two speakers thank you that was my cue forgive me I'm not gonna use the podium although the microphone has a kind of dog leash on it I hope to be able to move around a little bit thank you for the honor of the invitation and for the introduction it's great to be here in a functioning country I wanted to come to Ottawa before its annexation by the Chinese Communist Party and I think I just made it this is my first time here it's great obviously to see such a fantastic audience the just prior to dinner speech is not necessarily the easiest timeslot that one could be assigned so mindful of that here it goes there was this guy on his deathbed and he had a guilty conscience he was trying to get something off his chest his devoted wife was beside him and he kept trying and trying to tell her what he wanted to say he had only hours to live no hope finally he managed he said to her I just I have to tell you something I was unfaithful to you she took a deep breath looked at him and said duh why do you think i poisoned you and her name is Melania do we have time for questions I thought I would handle the Trump thing right up front because I figured it would come up at some point but yeah how else do you handle that one so let's talk about Russia a little bit I think we kind of talk about Russia too much but here we are again Boris Yeltsin was giving a press conference this is obviously the 1990s and some cheeky journalists said to him Boris Nikolayevich that's how they refer to people with respect in Russia can you describe the situation in Russia in one word and Yeltsin thought a little bit thought a little bit and he shouted out and his strong and powerful voice good caught a show now the journalist this cheeky journalist said thank you I have a follow-up Boris Nikolayevich can you describe the situation in Russia in two words Yeltsin thought a little bit and then he said not good Nakata show and so that's it that is the point of my talk Boris Yeltsin was correct both times and therefore just about everything we say about Russia is true more or less it's such a gigantic diverse complicated place that it's difficult to encompass with a simplified set of propositions and many contradictory things about Russia are true at the same time it's never as good as it people say when it's good and it's never as bad as people say when it's been okay I'm gonna make three points before I turn over the microphone and the leash to my partner during the course of the next maybe 20 minutes that's okay I'm not often on television and so there's a lot of pressure here in addition to not wanting to muff the talk in front of you there are all those Canadians out there besides you we have this expression in the United States called Minnesota nice I don't know if you've heard it but that's it for nice in the United States it's here in Canada it reaches into Minnesota and then that's it so it's I feel your niceness but I also feel the pressure here because if I blow it you won't be so nice so my first and deepest point I hope is that Russia has certain recurring patterns of behavior that are rooted in its predicament of where it's located and its place in the world and these recurring patterns are not the same that is to say they're similar and there was a version on the Czarist regime pre 1917 it was a version under communism in the period 1917 to 1991 and now there's a version today in post communism and it sort of goes like this the first and most important aspect of understanding Russia is its sense of itself as an just another country not an ordinary country not a normal or a regular country but a special country a country with a special mission in the world or what they like to say sometimes a power under God or providential power that Russia is not alone in this sentiment you'll notice that your neighbor to the South has occasionally expressed such a view of itself I think we're all familiar with that you'll notice that your new landlords from Beijing will also have such a view about themselves so Russia is not unique in this regard what's interesting about the Russian case however is that despite these ambitions right this aspiration to be in the first rank or maybe even the first rank country in the world Russia's capabilities are often not a match for its aspirations there's a gap between what Russia can do and how Russia imagines itself and that gap has not always been the same it's opened and closed over time but Russia has never been the richest country never been the most powerful country it's never been as strong as as capable as it imagines it should be as a special country with a special mission in the world a providential power so this gap between the aspirations and the capabilities has provoked has prompted Russia time and time again to try to use the state as an instrument to narrow the gap manage the gap overcome this discrepancy so the West is richer the West is stronger the west has technology let's use the state in a kind of forced modernization to catch up to the west and maybe even overtake the West this episodic herky-jerky forced modernization that state-led once again not the same in every epoch under the Czar's there was one version under Stalin there was quite a different version much more violent and coercive under Putin is a version much less violent and coercive compared to the communist version moreover the Putin version has retained private property which the Communist says you know eliminated so one wouldn't want to say that things never change or that it's the same always we're talking about recurring patterns or similarities over time and this recourse to the state produces a kind of economic growth spurt and then a period of stagnation the model has some let's say applicability in forcing the modernization diminishing the gap with the West but then hits a brick wall the attempt to do this the recourse of the state time and time again leads to a personalistic regime personal rule so they they say they want to be the top country they feel that that's their god-given right and they're not alone in that they don't quite measure up they try they force it make a strong state expand the state this quest for a strong state end up with personal rule it's quite pronounced how we keep getting this pattern in Russia and I would say that it's not because or not predominantly because there's something in the national culture right there's a kind of proclivity to authoritarianism or whatever it might be for me it's not a national culture question per se it's not something which is in the DNA that they can never overcome it is a choice that they make related to the sense of being this inheritor of the Byzantine Empire being this special power that driver leads them into this geopolitical conundrum this attempt to fix that discrepancy with the west and the personalistic rule you will then notice that there's a conflation between the survival of the personal regime and the survival of the country all of a sudden the personalistic regime right is conflated with the national interests of the country so to criticize the the regime of the ruler that would be Putin today that would have been Stalin years ago that would have been the Romanov dynasty before that to criticize that is now tantamount to treason because the personalistic regime as I said is conflated with the national interests of the country and the personalistic regime out for its own survival will do many things in the name of defending Russia's national interests sometimes that conflation will have a basis in reality and often it will be something which actually goes against the russian national interests as defined in terms of the well-being of its people okay so this conundrum this geopolitical conundrum predicament that Russia is in is not eternal but it is something they have yet to overcome you'll notice that the British and the French have lingering aspirations about being special countries in the world but for the most part they have made peace with relinquish that aspiration you'll notice that the Japanese and the Germans which had this view of themselves in the period up to World War two were bombed into submission and no longer feel this way for the most part so either mostly voluntarily as in the British in the French case or coercively as in the defeated Japanese and German case this kind of sense that your country is special different above the of international law etc it can be overcome but in the Russian case it persists as it does in the case of the US as we were saying in China okay it's just that the US and China are far more capable and their capabilities match their aspirations more closely alright let's move on to point two and once again I said I had three points so I'll point to now point two is that good and bad Russia stuff at the same time or what you might call the paradox of the Russian situation I could give you a lot of data real off a lot of numbers about how Russia is in a bad way many of you who keep up with the Foreign Affairs wouldn't be surprised that some of the things the sistex I could mention for example Russian GDP which is now about 1.3 trillion at the current dollar exchange rate is about one fifteenth the size of the US economy one fifteenth so as you know the Soviet economy at peak in the 1980s was one-third the size of the US economy the Russian economy is one fifteenth so that's a tremendous loss and moreover that is growing because the Russian economy is not dynamic its stagnant Russia has a massive evacuation hemorrhaging of human capital somewhere between five and ten million Russians are now living not just outside Russia but beyond the borders of the former Soviet Union they're living here in Canada they're living obviously in the UK France Germany they work in the laboratories at Princeton University that gigantic group of talented Russians are earning on average 20 percent above the median in all of new the other countries that the developed countries they live in so they're living in rich countries and they're out earning the median by 20% so that tells you that they're educated intrapreneurial and dynamic those are really valuable people to lose and moreover the Russian regime is pushing them out even as we speak here today at this dinner the entire middle class inside Russia is only about 10 million people and about 5 to 10 million as I said of some of their most dynamic most educated people have left the country voluntarily or been pushed out in large part because of the political regime since 1991 lack of investment in the human capital that didn't leave yet lack of investment in the infrastructure Russia as you know we like Canada's a northern country and it pays higher costs because of where it's located on the map whether that's in terms of dealing with winter or in terms of the long distances as you know from the Canadian case so one after the other of these measurements about how Russia is in a period of significant decline the most important indicator of all is the dysfunctionality of the Russian state you couldn't call individuals in Russia corrupt because the system is corruption corruption means that most people are not corrupt and a few are and you can identify them and potentially prosecute them that's the definition of corruption but when the entire system is that way then you can't really call it corruption it's kind of pre corruption they would have to get to a situation where many people in government were honest and then they could start calling things corruption so that's really devastating poor governance it may surprise you to learn that President Putin complains about poor governance in Russia all the time he issues orders and they don't get implemented and he complaints often on television about the failure to implement his orders authoritarian regimes have great difficulty controlling their functionaries when you don't have the rule of law when you yourself you're not subject to the rule of law your officialdom also sees things that way so Russia has these tremendous difficulties and they're not getting better and for them to get better Russia for Russia to modernize to produce a dynamic diversified economy investment in human capital right intrapreneurial ISM small and medium businesses which by the way account for 15% of employment small and medium businesses as opposed to about 70% which is the number in the United States for Russia to do love that the current regime would have to cashier itself it would have to get rid of itself the current Russian regime would have to destroy itself in order to get to a better place in terms of modernization so that's really the sort of bad side now on the other side Russia has unique capabilities you know them well they have the UN Security Council veto which is very valuable to them it makes them a member plus at the UN and they focus a lot of their energy at the UN those are the kind of organizations they like where Russia is a special country because it has a Security Council veto they have the nuclear weapons and their nuclear weapons are known to be able to work we have no doubt that they have that they will explode and that they have the delivery capabilities to put them right into this room if they were to target this particular room so they have very let's say distinguishing capabilities in addition to being in this situation of decline one could go on their geography is special their geography makes them a European Middle Eastern and to an extent Far Eastern country all at the same time so their geography gives them wherewithal in capabilities that most countries wouldn't couldn't well dream of I would say we could add to this list quite a long list of things that make Russia stand out the most important perhaps is the daring of the current regime because just because you have a strong hand doesn't mean you play it well that's called your neighbor to the south right how about being a superpower and not knowing you're a superpower it doesn't help to be a superpower if you don't actually know that you are and act accordingly right that doesn't mean you're bullying everybody all the time because part of being a superpower is example and restraint as we know the Russians despite their weakness have tremendous daring and this daring puts them into situations in places that maybe we're continually surprised that they're involved in but for them they are perceived strategic opportunities now they have relationships that are deep and significant that date back to Soviet days they have a foreign ministry which is quite a depth and deep and you'll if you've met Russian diplomats you know that many of them are very high level of professionalism and shrewd and their training is excellent their experience abroad is often quite deep because they're often posted in open societies and that's actually not that as difficult to posting as being posted the other way into a closed society but anyway so you have this crazy situation of a once amazing ancient deeply layered multinational civilization with unparalleled contributions to world culture in a situation now where it's declining weaker than just about it ever was and yet we talk about it constantly we obsess about it we can't seem to not talk about it and we think they're ten feet tall so they bite off Crimea they intervene in Syria they seem to have intervened in the u.s. election and it looks like they can do just about anything but to finish up the second point how much of that Russian behavior translated into strategic gains for Russia either in terms of undergirding the country's long-term power or improving the welfare of its population so there was once a Ukraine divided you're like Russia right now you're looking good but you're still coughing like crazy see that and he's not even part of this that was just a lucky break we didn't do this before him that he would encapsulate the speech you know George Bush remember George Bush we're allowed nostalgic for George Bush in Canada right oh my god George Bush was in a white house on South Lawn one day and he's he's he's looking out and he can't believe his eyes it's Moses come on Moses now George Bush sees Moses he yells hey Moses Moses Moses here's his name being cold turns around sees Bush and runs like the devil away from George Bush and Bush is distraught he's a churchgoer knows his Bible had a chance to meet Moses and it slipped his grasp a week later same thing happened same scenario repeated on a South Lawn there's Moses kind of walking around and Bush sees him and instead of yelling out his name Bush begins to run he's a bit of an athlete I don't know if you notice about Bush he's not only a world-class painter he begins to run and now he starts shouting Moses Moses hears his name again wants to run away again but by this time Bush's clothes leaps grabs and by the ankle tackles him and then Bush says to me says Moses I don't get this why are you running away from me I just want to meet you you know I know my Bible and Moses looks at him and says the last time I talked to a bush forty years in the desert yeah this is the point in the lecture where you have to do stuff like that because the undergraduates are no longer capable of paying attention you see once you hit the twenty twenty two minute mark you're done you got a fifty minute lecture and you're a twenty two minutes and you're facing death right there and remember during those twenty two minutes they've already purchased like three pairs of sweat pants I'd a j.crew on their laptop you know because they're having a winter sale and they've updated their Facebook page and everything else and then they still checkout from your lecture at twenty two minutes because Princeton University is only sixty five thousand dollars a year why should they have to pay attention for the full fifty twice a week so sometimes you got to figure out a way to bring the room back for some reason however this room seemed engaged so that was probably a gratuitous sports joke there that I told so I beg your pardon it's just habits are hard to break as we were just talking about in the case of Russia so this paradoxical situation Russia where they have these tremendous weaknesses and yet they have these unique capabilities that they're using they're only getting away with it because the other side is asleep at the wheel and moreover they're not gaining very much because we're as Ukraine was divided between pro-russia and pro-west is no longer divided Ukraine is now more pro-western than at any time in its history and that's an achievement of the Putin regime Syria was once a prosperous stable country with a Russian military base now it is civil war and ruination with a Russian military base it's hard to know what the strategic gain has been in Syria for Russia the United States is a deeply divided fantastically diverse politically diverse country and it was that way before Russia intervened in our electoral process and it's going to be that way after Russia intervenes and moreover the sanctions have now been redoubled and codified in law the sanctions against Russia so it's hard to see the strategic game that Russia might have gotten from the intervention and the American electoral process and American domestic politics one could go down the list of all the things that Russia is doing supposedly 10 feet tall and they have little or no long-term strategic value Russia is a weak country that is trying to punch above its weight seeming to do that only on cable television not in reality I knew it you watch cable TV right you do here's an educated audience tremendous accomplishments a roomful of professionals and you voluntarily turn on cable TV right yes you do you have nobody to blame but yourselves for that okay final third point before I turn over this the leash here the third point is the difference between understanding the the kind of Russian mentality and our mentality now I've spent my life studying Russia I'm a great admirer of that civilization I'm anti-russian I don't believe that the Putin regime is upholding Russian national interests I don't conflate the survival of the Putin regime with the survival of Russia as a country I differentiate them I see a possibility for a better Russia or different Russia nonetheless I am certainly not anti-russian if you assume as the Russians do that the West is more powerful than they are has the technology has the finances and money has the open functioning societies has this soft power media if you assume that's the case and you're trying to survive against that greater power you're under siege every day CNN and everything else is being broadcast into the homes of your people the Federal Reserve is tapering from its purchases bonds and this is now the de facto Central Bank of Russia the West by its very existence even if it does nothing is aggressive is an aggression against Russia it's so much stronger has so many instruments it's just so powerful and pushing and pushing its model its society its information its economy its institutions its military it's pushing this pushing this pushing is constantly in Russia's face and if you feel that you're a special country not subordinated to the West you deserve to be in the first rank you feel that the West is the one who is aggressive even if they don't think that way in the West if they're capable of thinking this way in Russia I we were talking earlier today there's a little bit of an analogy with the francophone population here in Ottawa right the Anglophone population is not trying from point of view to stamp out French speakers here and artists not trying to oppress them it's not trying to brainwash their kids it's not trying to take away their language but it's just so ubiquitous it's just so much pressure it's just so constant that the francophone people could potentially feel that they're under siege even though the Anglophone population is admirable honorable not aggressive just going about their business this is sort of like the situation we have west and Russia Russia's perception of the West is that the West is an aggression against Russia 24/7 unrelenting and so therefore Russia is justified is justified in taking defensive measures the West wants to use TV to brainwash the Russian population well we got to control the televisions we got to control the Internet we got to control the flow of information in the West wants to expand NATO and move NATO closer and closer to Russia's borders well we have to preempt that an annex territory and take over some of our neighbours in a defensive move and the West looks at distances you're taking over countries that don't belong to you and Russia says you're using those countries against us you're bringing them into your orbit your sphere of influence in order to destabilize the Russian regime and do regime change so once again you see this belief and the providential power the special mission in the world the weaker capabilities visa vie the West the inability to overcome that weakness and the self-perceived defensive posture that requires forward behavior forward activity intervention constant vigilance to blunt this Western aggression which is just it's so facto it's just because the West exists that's why and so this leads to the kind of situation we have now angle a miracle or whoever it might be has a meeting with Putin and they have this conversation and she comes out and says he's from a different world and this is it this is the point of separation which is to say that the Russians believe they're being defensive when the West thinks the Russians are being aggressive and the West thinks it's just doing nothing when the Russians believe it's 24/7 pressure by the West's very existence okay final point I'll end up with this are we stuck in this bind that were in now that was the prompt I believe that the Ambassador delivered at the beginning innocent and let's open up the answer to that I'm sure my co-panelist will have quite a bit to say about that and there could be questions about that so the situation with Russia there is a misunderstanding or what you could call a kind of difference in worldview here a gestalt problem but it's most fundamentally a clash of interests in other words if we are friendly talk more right have more forums more exchanges of realize that they're people to where people to will fix this the answer is no there's a fundamental clash of interests the fundamental clash of interest kind of goes like this this is the end of the point three American grand strategy to simplify maybe oversimplify is essentially to prevent any great power dominating its region so nobody should know European country dominating Europe nobody dominating the Middle East nobody dominating Eurasia nobody dominating East Asia that's more or less American grand strategy a good idea or a bad idea successful not successful I'm leaving all that aside what's Russian grand strategy dominate its region dominate Eurasia and so this is what we call in international relations study and you don't have to be a graduate of Calton or Ottawa University to understand this this is a fundamental clash of interests and it's very hard to reconcile that moreover it's undergirded by a fundamental clash of values the primary value in the United States once again you could be ridiculed there's a parrot parrot self-parody parodic version of this is freedom freedom from the state that's the principle value in United States culture what's the principle value in Russian culture it's the state one is freedom from the state and the other is the state so not only at the level of state interests but even at the level of values there's a fundamental clash we could elaborate this all the rest of the evening so it's not a misunderstanding alone it's deeper than that so you it's very hard to get to a better place but my point would be that it doesn't have to be as bad as it is right now that the clash can be managed fundamental differences can be managed they can't easily be overcome but then again they can be managed otherwise we wouldn't have marriage with the definition of marriage is a fundamental clash of interests and potentially a fundamental clash of values and yet many of us stay married many of us for example have teenagers and there's a very wide gulf did as a fundamental clash of interests as well as values there too right but we manage that process sometimes coercively but nonetheless we manage right and so this relationship with Russia could be managed without either side having to capitulate right so but you it's difficult to get to a better place unless you understand that the clash is not a misunderstanding and therefore you want to get to that better place while still holding on to the values that your culture your civilization holds dear anyway thank you for your attention [Applause] I think so thank you very much professor and let me ask a professor to kovitch to give a response or commentary and then we'll open the floor to questions and answers Pietra thank you let me use the podium because I prefer a few comments and I don't like to mix those pages and to become even less comprehensible that I usually am well to the conclusion of my colleague presentation would be what we say in Eastern Europe the situation is excellent but not hopeless probably that's what we that's what we have in our relations with Russia but let's start me from the from the main point of today's meeting whether Russia is in or outside international order wrong question because we assume that there is international order the fact is that there is not the I believe that we first should put Russia behavior in this context before we will explain how they do that and my first point is that for over a decade most of the international system decayed to the point of of becoming and system of disorder just look at the expert opinion in recent year you have books and articles talking like Anna Javed from Berkeley New World Disorder macro sociologist Zygmunt Bauman disturbing the spirit as interregnum in which one set of orders are already passing away they are dying the new order is not yet born the new paradigm is new yet yet born so we are in this interregnum in-between that we do not know how to play the game then we have the other experts describing the situation as I quote strategic frivolity or strategic carelessness or as a Russian some of the Russian expert put it recently that is a class without the teacher which makes sense and then you have a recognizing Jerusalem because it responds to reality say quote there is nothing more or less than a recognition of reality this is creation of the new order out of disorder nothing more nothing less and China nineteen Party Congress declares in the final resolution I quote the CPC will work hard toward a new form of international relations what are these new forms of international relations so the question is why China why sorry why Russia shall stick to something that does not exist any longer why Russia can stick to collapsing system of norms what is the incentive of Russia to stay within this collapsing system of nerves what are the incentive for them if they are facing six or seven layers of sanctions what is the incentive if they are facing the almost unanimous condemn nation for the behavior so why they should stay within the norms if the all institutions that they are dealing with today starting from OSC in NATO and so on and so forth are the product of the Cold War they are product on 1950s so if you are looking forward means you have to first destroyed the past and then look to the future Russia is not destroying the past Russia is not destroying the International patience Russia goes beyond international relations as we know it but but again the question is wrong because there is no system of international relation as of today we think the second point is Russia behavior job politically and professor Hawking already mentioned several times job politics for Russia is not an option it is imperative they have to actual Italy because they would like to maintain the big power status or regain this big stout power status among those who are bordering with them they have China in the East or in the Chinese West the heavy European Union that is not a benign organization that is expansive organization its expands its subordinates Russia to the set of rules and values that Europeans accept by Russian don't there is NATO and so on and so forth so Russia is pressed from the west from the south from the East not only from the north Russia is expanded to the north to the great Arctic space there's only way they can expert without putting the foot on someone's toes so usually the new world order or new international system like after first world war and after the second world war is born as a consequence of the big world this time what we see Russia is behaving differently but not using the war to change the rules of the game which is positive now a few words about Russia Canada relations I believe that we we in Canada can be compared to the barge on the high seas and this barge is flowing most of the times depends on the way of the winds from the south and this winds are steering this barge into anti-russian corner by enlarge so if there is a tall Canadian foreign policy and not just bilateral relations between Canada and us which it looks like that then then Russia is is or Russia is having a problem how to deal with Canada because there are no incentives on the Canadian side and it will be non incentive on the Russian side to continue this relations which were very warm we have a few ambassadors including ambassador West all today who who was hosting Kandarian Clarkson and who was hosting Creighton in Moscow and they were treated like royalty now our diplomats cannot even call cannot even think of calling Deputy Minister of Russia because there will be no answer I'm not talking about the minister because the answer is not so but this is our fault this Russian fault because we reacted today behavior but this is our fault that we did not develop anything original our policies like hammer and we see everything what's going on in Russia as nail so naturally if you have a hammer you are you are using this hammer to hit the nails and that's how we behave for the last 2 or 3 years so what I'm saying is that we have aspirations in our foreign policy towards Russia we would like to see cooperation in array of Arctic anti-terrorist maybe some business as well we have we have wonderful representative observer who they are doing everything what what they can to increase Canadian presence in international market and create Canadian jobs but there are fruitless efforts without support of the government and there is no support of the government and I hope it will be the one of the problem is that we became hostage of the minority politics in our foreign policy and among this minority is the wonderfully organized very efficient Ukrainian community and we became the hostage in relation to Russia of that community whether it is right or wrong it's another story the story is that but allowing along the US line allowing little weapons to be delivered to Ukraine we are becoming part of that conflict we like it or not we are perceived as part of the code it's pity because we have such a good relation with Ukraine that we could help Ukrainians to manage the relations with Russia we can be part of the big conversation in the other the Minsk format in making peace if in Ukraine we deliberately close this door unfortunately for Ukrainians unfortunately for Canadians maybe for some Russians as well so in in and you know there are other stories that maybe during the conversation later on we will will bring to the table in conclusion it's there is a common sense in Moscow foreign policy circle and I know there maybe the trash' can regain its great power status only by confronting United States that is reality not by cooperating with it speaking in October in front of the vadik club when I was present put in mr. Putin declared that the post-communist Russian gravest mistake was I quote putting its trust in the West in the 1990s years and wanted to imitate the West its values institutions and Moscow today's focus on mirroring Western policies with respect to Russia doing to the west what Russian believe the West has done have done to them well finally finally obviously pressure cooking is absolutely right under percent right by saying that that Russia is much weaker than United States by many many times obviously they know it they know it economically militarily technologically and in any other possible way but the Kremlin believes that power and weakness are a complex complex that are very complex concepts today and not every time the stronger party wins so there are sometimes using non-conventional methods to win the game knowing that they are weaker or every point that is logically put on the table you know it's you have your wonderful Constitution with full of values and norms it's very admired but if I have a scissors I can shred this Constitution to pieces in minutes so why should I use another comparable norms and values if kind if I can use a scissors that is the game and the game is dangerous because Russia will mean will veer or not what the West is doing but I agree with presser cutting that that they would mirror what Russia believes the West is doing the same with with the West we believe in something what Russia has done to us or doing which is not necessarily reality so means and that's the most important when I talk to Russian politicians the day perception of the reality is very much different that our perception of the reality we lived in and I'll unless we will manage and bring together our realities we are poised for the long term structural confrontation that will carry on for the for some year and in the last word we will probably have to think how to better manage confrontation the current stage of relation is not about avoiding confrontation it's not it's not avoiding a struggle the problem is how to manage this struggle and that's I hope that will be wise enough to do thank you but now it's your chance to ask questions now the situation is perfectly clear I would ask you to keep the questions short and to introduce yourselves in doing so so and please come to the microphone and we have Chris Westall a former ambassador both to Ukraine and to Russia sitting right at the mic the first thing I hasten to come to the mic for the simple reason that I haven't had a better hour hour and a half talks about Russia as long as I can remember so truly thank you both for for quite riveting times I did want to ask a question professor Culkin when you were speaking about the lesson obvious benefits for Russia's strategic interests of some of its behavior whether in Syria or more particularly in Ukraine Russia having managed to unite Ukraine against the Kremlin which is scarcely a strategic gain it seems to me that the strategic interest and the the the stakes were set by the expansion of NATO and that the strategic gain that Russia needed to protect and is paying a very high cost to protect and is imposing high costs to protect is the containment of NATO we used to word use that word containment for what the strategy was with respect to Russia what it seems to me that it's being lighted my Putin it wasn't Yeltsin's but Vladimir Putin is quite a different leader and it is being his purpose to contain NATO he made that clear in 2008 in Georgia despite Bush American encouragement of Saakashvili and he's making it clear at great cost now in Ukraine so that strategic interest I think is being served would you agree with that thank you very much for your kind words about the presentations and I noticed you did sit directly behind the microphone so we're grateful for that perhaps needle threaten Russia what threatens Russia we seem to believe that the Russians and they're not all Russians but that some and the Russian leadership are correct when they perceive NATO as a threat I don't think so NATO is no threat whatsoever to Russian national interests what's the threat that Russia faces it's a criminal regime that murders its own people whether they're journalists or ordinary people or business people or operatives abroad who have been perceived to betray the country that's the threat that's the regime itself the regime itself which cannot and does not modernize the country invest in human capital invest in infrastructure that's the threat to Russia kicks out forces out or otherwise encourages to leave some of its best people is that needle doing that or is that Russia doing that I could go on down the list of the threats to Russia and they're all sitting in the Kremlin Russia is not a bad place it's actually a magnificent place I enjoy very much going there I'll be there on Sunday again at the same time it hurts it hurts me to see what's happening the scapegoating of the West the scapegoating of NATO the perception of this enveloping threat as if the West's NATO is threatening Russia NATO could expand to every country in the world and the problem for Russia would still be its own regime you know Russia is an unfree country the society is still more or less open and the people are as amazing as we know them to be but that brahim is not a rule of law regime and I wouldn't want them having a significant say in a new international order I don't want the Chinese defining the new international order either because I prefer to live in a free society I think freedom is not a cliche I think it's real and I think the absence of freedom is very easy to understand you just have to experience it I've spent my life studying it I know what it looks like in what it feels like that's not to say that everything Russia does is wrong or evil or that everything that Washington or Brussels or you name Ottawa you name the capital does is correct many Western policies are self-defeating let alone inimical to Russia and do you know them as well as I do because you were sometimes on the receiving end of those cables instructing you to do things that weren't always the smartest thing to do so this is not a defense of the West nor is this a blackening of Russia per se this is I have a problem with that unfree corrupt criminal Russian regime let's call it what it is that's the threats of that country the expansion of NATO might have been a mistake it might have been a good idea we could debate that you know for the for the rest of the winter here in Canada and I understand you're winners don't end early but what's unequivocally true is if NATO had not expanded right the Russian regime would still be resentful about the decline of Russian power visa vie the West that is a dynamic as I try to explain that's deep in that society plays out over centuries and is the core fundamental problem they want to be what they're not capable always of being and it's that's their right to choose that but their people pay the price NATO expansion is over and Russian behavior continues my name is Aakash Maharaja I'm from the global organization of parliamentarians against corruption I I was taken by one of the comments that there's no international system and that while of course institutions and norms come and go I think clearly there there has always been the same same system of the weak to strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must but what strikes me as odd is that Russia is purchasing its interest in at least appearing to be a great power while the material interest of its country withers my question for you then and many of my colleagues in Russia described it as a contest between the television refrigerator but my question for you is in the long term do you think that restiveness within the russian population will bring a corrective in the priorities of the russian state or do the russian people have an infinite capacity for suffering and along those lines for people who would like to see the welfare of the russian people come first what factors do you think would feed into that sort of change from within well what I was trying to say is that there is a period in between in which one system of norms is going to be replaced by another system of Knorr and that's only in this sense I use this shorthand expression of there is no international system to be correct second your question is value loaded in many ways and I'm not sure I understand your question correctly because you assume that the Russians are suffering from the own system I'm not sure whether this assumption is correct some suffering yes some are expressing the de non willingness to cooperate with the state but walking away from the state and emigrating somewhere else but if you are looking at the opinion polls then you will be surprised that 76 to 78 percent of the people like Russia they would like to stay in Russia s is not change Russia not differential Russia as is of course you can say well these people don't know what the freedom is and therefore they don't know what they are voting for which is a an awkward explanation to me because we live in the time we live and we express what we want to express at current time not as we were transforming to Mars and then coming back which we had the opportunity in Eastern Europe to do so so your second point is whether or not Russia will rebuilt itself I'm not sure this economic situation is pretty weak socially situation is not great there are tensions and and and original disparities at the high level and so on and so forth I'm not sure but I'm sure that you know majority of Russians are not as desperate as we can see this situation we are know much more worried about them that they are worried about themselves probably in this regard it will be also interesting to read the current polls which are available this month from VCM that says that Russian president will get at least 80 percent of the vote if the vote will be completely free and out of any of any interference this is the only man in the in the in this in this area available at the moment wrongly or rightly it's not for me to decide but there is the situation so I would say that you know professor kotkin presents this as a hugely corrupt murderous regime I would I would not be as as critical not because I am NOT critical this my profession to be critical but I see different reality that he says probably and we should confront the pages of the statistics in order to get something in the middle Russia economic growth is slow but it's growing sanctions hit Russia Russia lost 1.2 percent of the GDP because of the sanctions but still they are surviving and it's interesting to see that under the sanctions certain sectors are booming for instance agricultural produce is 5/4 larger than it was before the sanction Russia is becoming the net exporter of meat and grain which hits our market heavily and so on and so forth so you know politically is a one story that you see under our from our perspective being in Russia you have a different perspective and you see different reality that we see that's why I think that the management of perception plays a control in our relations because we will not change reality but we may change perception of each other I have just one thing I could say many things here you could imagine the one thing I would say is that the polling organization to which the professor referred was coercively expropriated by the Russian regime it was a private polling organization full of the best experts in the country and the regime stole it expropriated for itself and now it works for the state so yes there are different realities and different perceptions of realities we could go on through the full litany of things Russian real wages are stagnant or in decline and this is something that no television program can change and the Russian population understands that their wages are stagnant or in decline and you can't tell them otherwise because they're the ones opening those paychecks so it's a complicated situation in Russia in terms of domestic politics I have to say that it could well be that president Putin's popularity would be the same if there were political alternatives that were allowed but there are no political alternatives allowed in Russia they suppress all other political alternatives what type of regime that is confident about itself its popularity in its policies forcibly suppresses all political alternatives I don't think that's a perception issue hi my name is Jean Francois I'm a public servant and a student and my question is us following in the last 25 years there was a important variation in like some measure such as life expectancy and I'm wondering what's the relation with like politics and also what's like is it important for the common common Russian like what's the impact on politics measures such as like increased in life expectancy for like common Russian general population that's a good a complicated question I'll give a short possible answer your shortest possible answer one could give Russian demographic challenges are very severe their severe across most industrialized countries where the number of workers is declining and the number of pensioners is rising this is a very significant problem in Japan in Italy Russia is part of that group of countries Russia has some specific differences in addition having to do with the toxicity of the Soviet inheritance very heavily industrialized economy and in addition Russia has alcohol issues and now drug issues Russia is the leading drug addiction country for illegal drugs I think the United States would be for legal drugs that are prescribed by doctors so Russia has many challenges that are related to its demographic makeup it was doing well with immigration primarily from the former Soviet republics that wave has reversed remittance population where they would work in Russia send the money back similar to what happens in the United States for example that wave has reversed considerably for many reasons that the client the value in the ruble the stagnation of the Russian economy and certain domestic tensions over immigrants which are not peculiar to Russia anyway so that's once another issue in the many issues that the Russian regime is confronting or failing to confront would be my argument this is the thing you need to know about Russia if you're patriotic if you're a patriotic Russian stop making excuses for the Russian regime stop saying you know NATO did this and NATO did that and Clinton did this and George Bush did that start explaining to me the investment in young people like yourself start explaining to me the expansion of those old scientific laboratories which were once state-of-the-art start explaining to me the kind of new airports or new trains or new highways they're all lacking start explaining to me the smothering of small and medium businesses they're their takeover by state officials or by other business people at gunpoint in which state officials are complicit this is the reality of Russia why can't they encourage small and medium businesses and curb the functionaries from smothering them Russia has deep and fundamental problems related to poor governance we can argue about how murderous they are how criminal they are how corrupt they are of course there are differences of opinion and interpretation on that and those differences are related to the same set of facts that can be reasonably interpreted by different people differently but what you can't interpret differently is that Russia is very poorly governed and that this is not a way to remain in return to or stay over the long time in the ranks of great powers and great nations and Russians themselves know this and they are very concerned the Russian elite that it rallied around Putin is no longer of one mind regarding that regime because that regimes failure to modernize and its policies that are undermining even the good things that are happening in the society is significantly hurting the elites they understand this and they're concerned not the ones who are fleeing who are large in number but even the ones who are staying you talk to the 2nd and 3rd and 4th echelon officials in Russia and they are very concerned about the future of that country poke a stick in the American I feel good for the day or the week and then you wake up the next day and you don't have much to show for it that's a problem for any patriot of Russia and I include myself in that I just say something just at the end not related to that I mentioned at the beginning about your book volume was one and two are available from our friends at books on beechwood at the back and you mentioned to me I asked you how you can manage to write two massive volumes and working on a third and I said you must have a battery of assistants and you said you don't have any assistants to write it so it's something that's worth just looking at to see I think a shadow in two volumes and we wait for volume three Margaret before I ask James Taylor sigh Taylor to give formal thanks on all Bob behalf let me on that note just add that we're very fortunate because I know there are still many questions in the room but fortunately both of our key speakers tonight have a very large volume volume of work books that they have published and I encourage you all to have the opportunity to take the opportunity to read them both the books of Professor cotton and we anxiously await volume three also also also the books professor Dookie Evitts so if I could ask sy Taylor to step to the microphone we're very fortunate to have him provide the final thank you former Deputy Minister Deputy Foreign Minister James Taylor former Chancellor of McMaster University ambassador in many countries serving also with NATO as well as earlier in his career in Moscow over to you and thank you again Thank You Margaret I think professor cotton you've you've already appreciated and so as your partner how much we valued the presentation this evening I guess I represent one of the oldest generation here present of those who've spent a good deal of their lives anxious about the relationship with Russia thank you and endlessly curious about it and that fascination exists and is stimulated very much by the kinds of discussions we've had tonight and the debate that ensued in the question period of course your reputation preceded you we were aware of the very impressive reviews that the previous volumes of your Stalin biography have received and a number of us here have had the pleasure of embarking on the first two volumes and some of it for some of us the pleasure awaits us I can imagine myself lasting out Ottawa's eternal winter by starting with Volume one and simply carrying on until April or May in any event that's a pleasure that awaits but meanwhile we are very much indebted to you for an extraordinarily perceptive a simple presentation a presentation that was very clear which i think is always appreciated and yet while you were all encompassing it was a very penetrating analysis as well and we will continue to reflect on the problematic future of the relationship I'm sure but meanwhile we will appreciate the further insights that you have given us and on behalf of everyone here I'd like to thank you again most sincerely [Applause] Nancy for those of you who are now leaving us thank you so much for joining us this evening we hope to see you at many more CIC national Capitol branch events and for those who are staying I hope you will enjoy the dinner a la prochaine share colleague said of Vermont Lisa that Tommy Bruce's were merci beaucoup [Applause] you

Channel: CIC-Ottawa

Views: 33,217

Rating: 4.5667505 out of 5

Keywords: Politics, Russia, Putin, Canada, Princeton University

Id: uKOdXaiAgyY

Length: 93min 36sec (5616 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 10 2018