The New U.S.-Russian Cold War—Who is to Blame?

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4dJcdM2Dkg&feature=share

Prof. Stephen F. Cohen argues that unwise US policies since the 1990s have been responsible for the new Cold War. Former US ambassador to Moscow Michael McFaul argues that Russia’s leader since 2000, Putin, is to blame.

A discussion of the Stephen F. Cohen–Michael McFaul debate.

Stephen F. Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at NYU and Princeton, and John Batchelor continue their (usually) weekly discussions of the new US-Russian Cold War. (You can find previous installments of these conversations, now in their fifth year, at TheNation.com.)

On May 9, at a public event jointly sponsored by Columbia University’s Harriman Institute and NYU’s Jordan Center for Advanced Russian Studies, Cohen and McFaul—a Stanford University professor and previously President Obama’s top Russia adviser in the White House and then his ambassador to Moscow—debated a crucial historical but also urgent contemporary subject: “The New US-Russian Cold War—Who Is to Blame?” Cohen argues that unwise American policies since the 1990s have been largely responsible. McFaul, drawing on themes in his new book, From Cold War to Hot Peace, argues that Russia’s leader since 2000, Vladimir Putin, is to blame. (A video of the full debate can be seen here.)

Batchelor plays several statements by Cohen and McFaul at the event, which he and Cohen discuss. Among the main points made by Cohen are the following:

— The new Cold War has unfolded for more than twenty years without any substantive mainstream debate—not in elections, Congress, the media, think tanks, or universities. In a democracy, such debates are the only way to challenge and change official policy. As a result, Washington’s unwise policies toward Moscow have been guided by the same underlying assumptions and principles since the 1990s. This situation is dramatically unlike the preceding 40-year Cold War, when US policy was regularly debated both at high and grassroots levels from the 1960s through the 1980s. And this lack of public debate is one reason why the new Cold War is more dangerous than was its predecessor. Therefore, Cohen emphasizes, if this event sets a precedent, inspires more such debates between representatives of fundamentally opposing American views, as he and McFaul are, there will be no loser only winners in the making of subsequent US policy toward Russia.

— Cohen locates the origins of the new Cold War at the time when the preceding one was said to have ended. The three leaders who declared that the Cold War had ended in 1989­­­–1990—Presidents Gorbachev, Reagan, and George H.W. Bush—publicly agreed it had been terminated through negotiations and “without any losers.” But in 1992, Bush changed both the timing and terms of that epochal event, dating it from the end of the Soviet Union in December 1991, two years later, and declaring: “America won the Cold War.” Thus arose the US triumphalism and sense of entitlement that has informed Washington’s policies toward post-Soviet Russia ever since.

— At the same time, in 1990, another major agreement was successfully negotiated and then violated by Washington. In return for Gorbachev’s agreement that a reunited Germany (the political epicenter of that Cold War) would be a NATO member, the Western powers, led by President Bush, pledged that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward.” Violating that pledge a few years later led to two primary causes of the new Cold War: today, NATO, the world’s most powerful military alliance, is encamped on Russia’s borders; and the Russian policy elite’s abiding belief, expressed not only by Putin, that Washington has repeatedly broken its promises to, even “deceived,” Moscow.

👍︎︎ 1 👤︎︎ u/FinnagainsAwake 📅︎︎ Jun 17 2018 🗫︎ replies
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good afternoon everyone welcome to today's event here my name is Alex Cooley I am the current director of the Herman Institute at Columbia University and a professor of political science at Barnard College and it is just a great pleasure and a privilege on behalf of Harriman and of New York University's Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia to welcome you to today's event debate the new US Russian cold war who is to blame so this is part of a Columbia NYU New York Russia public policy series that my colleague Josh Tucker and I have been running over the last two years and the purpose is to spotlight issues involving Russia to bring together a New York based community that's interested in academic research but also is professionally involved in the region and to really foster a network that is interested in having these cross professional types of dialogues and so after a number of sessions I think we saved the best for last today and we're just delighted to announce that we'll keep this going next year the series is funded by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York so thank you Carnegie for your generous support our two speakers today Stephen Cohen who grew up in Kentucky and received his BS and MA degrees from Indiana University and a PhD from Columbia is professor emeritus of Russian studies in politics at nyu in princeton and author of several well-known books including Bukharan the Bolshevik Revolution of political biography rethinking the Soviet experience failed crusade America and the tragedy of post communist Russia and then he's working on a new book Y called war again which will be published in 2009 a longtime media commentator professor Cohen writes regularly for the Nation magazine and he is a recipient of several awards and also a member of the board of the American committee for east-west Accord and an ambassador and professor Michael McFaul is a professor of political science director and senior fellow at the Freeman spogli Institute for International Studies and the Peter and the Helen being senior fellow at the Hoover Institution he joined the Stanford faculty in 1995 he is also an analyst for NBC News you may have seen him over the last few days and contributing columnist of the Washington Post dr. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration first a special assistant to the President and senior director for Russian and Eurasian affairs at the National Security Council at the White House from 2009 to 2012 and then as the US ambassador to the Russian Federation 2012 2014 he is the author of many books but his new from Cold War to hot Pease an American ambassador in putin's russia has just been published and is available for purchase downstairs and basser McFaul will sign copies for you I'm sure after the event if you stick around so that's all for me I want to welcome you again I know this is a really busy time of year but the topic is hot and it's really important and what to do about Russia how our Russia policy has possibly strayed and you know what we should do going forward are all vitally important issues for the academic and the policy community now I'm going to turn it over to Josh Tucker who will moderate the session he's a professor of politics at nyu director of the jordan center there and he will lay out the ground rules and keep us all in line Josh okay all right thank you very much Alex I want to join Alex as well in thanking our distinguished distinguished speakers today I know we're all really looking forward to the discussion and as well to thank all of you for coming out at this time of year for the audience today I also want to welcome people who are live-streaming the event right now and in particular welcome the people at the Jordan Center where we're live-streaming it back at the Jordan Center at NYU for those who make it north of 14th Street so I I'm gonna go over the format really quickly of what's gonna happen here and in particular there's a part there's a big part for you to pay attention to as well so the way it's gonna work is we're gonna invite each of the speakers in turn to come up and give about 15 minutes of remarks on the subject on the topic and that's what we're gonna start off so they're each gonna get about 15 minutes of remarks at that point we'll have a brief pause for technical issues and we're gonna raise this screen up and we'll bring out a little table here so that doesn't mean the events over it's not even in intermission it's just but if you need to stretch it's a good time to stretch so we'll bring the table out and we'll get started up and then the next thing we're gonna do is we're gonna have some time for the candidates the candidates we're gonna have some time for the speakers to respond respectfully to the points the other person has made and and Alex and I may ask a few questions to sort of prompt that discussion and then the second half of the session will turn over to you the audience both here physically in the room and virtually I the way we're gonna do this is when you came in the room today you should have been given an index card we will have during the point where the screens being raised and the tables coming out we'll have our ushers circulate through the room you at that point can write a Ken hand over your index card you can write a question down whenever you'd like if you want to write a question down later on in the session after they've spoken you know after the follow-up when they're talking back to each other that's fine to raise your hand with the card will do as we will try to grab the cards at that point so that's the way we're gonna do questions people are gonna write cards for those of you who are watching on live stream you can tweet questions using the hashtag Cohan McFaul and we'll what monitor the Twitter feed on that hashtag so it's cohan McFaul one word hashtag cohan McFaul we'll look for questions on twitter and for those of you who are back at the Jordan Center you can give your questions to Heather who will put them on a Google Doc and we'll be monitoring that as well so we're gonna try and get questions from a variety of different formats involve people who are here and people who are watching from other places and then the questions will be flow will flow through Alex and I'd the final thing I just want to let everybody know is that this is an on-the-record event it is being recorded though it's being live-streamed as you might have picked up already and it's going to be archived so please remember everything you say here is on the record and this is you know this is an academic event and as an academic as academic institutions we welcome the clash of ideas we welcome different perspectives but we also welcome them in a respectful manner and we and we hope that everyone will enjoy the spirit of that today that we will be having different viewpoints but we will be treating those viewpoints with respect and we'll look for questions and comments in that regard as well oh yeah and questions should be questions on the card as in having a question mark at the end of them okay without further ado we're gonna begin and I want to welcome first professor Stephen Cohen who's gonna come up and give our first 15-minute opening remarks I was down in New Orleans not long ago and I saw a gun shop Cohen and McCain what do you think what to say I think I want to say that today just completed May 9th in Russia didn't Bob Yeti Victory Day the most sacred secular holiday in Russia when I was a kid growing up in Kentucky we had a very sacred holiday called VE Day Victory in Europe day because of the clock it was on May 8th so far as I know it no longer exists in America as a day when schools were closed therein lies part of what we might not express today but part of the differences that have evolved over the years between Russia and the United States I think this is a very important event not because I'm here I'm just a stand-in partly because the very distinguished multi credentialed ambassador professor Michael McFaul is here grateful I once knew his mic before but I'm so glad he's here but it's important essentially for this reason that we are now in a new cold war with Russia and it is more dangerous than the preceding Cold War I know that could be a separate subject of debate and it might come up tonight but that's what I feel my point is is that this new and more dangerous Cold War has evolved over more than 15 16 almost 20 years without any real sustained substantive public debate in America not in the media not in the universities not in Congress almost never in elections not on the campuses so far as I can see this is entirely different from the 1970s and 80s when I entered public life when this country was then debating Cold War and a taunt and the country was fall high in DC low with the Annie Newton at the grassroots of debate without debate if we behave democratically there is no way to review long long-standing foreign policy and a hope that we might change it democratically but we have had in place more or less the same policy toward post-soviet Russia for twenty to twenty-five years I think a fundamentally fault policy but it is remained intact partly because it's not been publicly debated so to me that's the importance of this I don't think if this event is any kind of precedent and encourages other debates there'll be any winner or loser here today if if I sort of McFaul and I can inspire others to do what we're doing I think everybody wins when the debates unfolded in the 60s 70s and 80s grudgingly but eventually the opposing sides in this country came to agree as did scholars later that both sides Moscow and Washington were responsible in their own ways for what became the 40-year Cold War and that therefore they had to seek mutual ways of containing it preventing it from become nuclear war and if possible ending it it's different in the United States today almost unanimously there are a few exceptions but they're not heard loudly or consistently it said that Russia and specifically Putin's Russia as it's called and more specifically Russian President Putin is to blame I prefer the word responsible for the new Cold War and that's one reason why the new Cold War is more dangerous than the preceding one the absence of the day of debate leaves us with an explanation which suggests that America need not review its policy or change it so as I say if this becomes the start of more debates all of us have to be very grateful to Professor Cooley and to Josh Tucker fervent for for sponsoring this debate and certainly to Professor McFaul to making time for us certainly I am grateful how do you do it though how do you debate such a large fraught complicated subject responsibility for the new Cold War so I'm gonna start with the axiom that I've always liked formulated by the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan whom I paraphrase only for the sake of gender correctness Moynihan's Moynihan said everyone isn't to his or her own opinions but not to his or her own facts I would add only that if any of us scholars journalists pundits medical doctors auto-mechanics proceed without verified facts we will certainly malpractice and we've seen that in recent American political history but the question is where do we find the facts that we need I think consensual facts even if crudely or elliptically stated for our own opinions or interpretations or analysis and for me the only place is history because to a certain extent history has been vetted we have memoirs we have analyses we have a scholarship we even have documents we even have archives therefore what I'm going to do very quickly in my 15 minutes is to remind you because I look out on the room I see that final examinations have snatched our youngest generation remind most of you not all of you should I say that my daughter my youngest daughter only a few hours ago finished law school right next door I should say that she took her last exam I remind you of the highlights of this history of American foreign policy toward post-soviet Russia bearing in mind that along the way I think we lost a historic opportunity for an authentic Russian American American Russian strategic partnership I don't believe in friendships between nations or friendships between leaders I believe in partners going around and saying Boris or latina or whomever is my friend is uninteresting is he your partner do you have business to do about our mutual interests and our mutual security whether your liking or not so here's how you begin this because I think as a historian when did the Cold War end if it ended sometimes I'm not sure it did but let's say it ended it ended according to the three main participants Soviet President Gorbachev and American President Reagan and Bush in 1989 maybe 1991 it ended because they said it ended and because the Soviet Union bloc and Eastern Europe vanished and the wall came down and they went on to say it ended through negotiation among equal partners it was a negotiated end of war and negotiated end of war and they went on to say there were no winners or losers in that spirit in 1990 gorbachev made an enormous concession he agreed to a reunited Germany because that was unfinished business of the first Cold War Germany was the epicenter of the Cold War political he agreed to a reunited Germany in NATO and it was a hard thing for him to sell at home in return he got promises and you've all heard this expression has become a cliche that NATO would never move two inches to the east bad promise made has been challenged over the years but it is now indisputably documented because the declassified documents have been published by the National Security Archive in December last year in Washington it's all there and it wasn't only Bush in the Americans it was the French the Germans and the British who made this promise to Gorbachev in memos and verbally this was the origins the fateful turning point in two respects NATO today of course sits on Russia's borders very far to the east in the Baltic region and it is headed don't matter what they tell us still toward Georgia and Ukraine it's stalled but it's only stopped that began what Putin but not only Putin even the president that I think professor McFaul knows quite well Dmitry Medvedev have said over the years repeatedly a series of American broken promises and deceptions meanwhile after this agreement Washington made things worse the very first president George Bush who had agreed to this negotiated into the Cold War then reinterpreted during his presidential reelection campaign against Bill Clinton and said no we won the Cold War this is an entirely different interpretation Russia and now it becomes not an equal partner in the peace bought a defeated power analogous maybe Germany and Japan after World War Two and maybe to be treated accordingly that's the rose I think however you have formulated the triumphalist axiom in American foreign policy toward Russia post-soviet Russia that flourished under Clinton and continues even certainly I don't know what Trump does but continued through the Obama administration the history of the Clinton administration's policy towards Russia is well documented I wrote a book about it failed crusade several other people did its reputation today is not very good I call Clinton's approach to Russia a winner-take-all approach a kind of triumphalist attitude toward Russia done with a physically alien ailing and psychologically needy Russian president Boris Yeltsin in Russia's and internal affairs people with the blessing of the Clinton administration nettled to use a fashionable world today in ways far exceeding Russia gate allegations today Americans sat in official rush offices in Moscow and the provinces drafted legislation and laws favored certain political candidates got loans for the government on political terms helped rig Yeltsin's reelection in 1996 both Michael and I were in Moscow that year you could see it it was not a secret abetted the oligarchs plundering of Russia's wealth by helping them London launder the money including at the bank of New York but in many other places and while the majority of Russians the figure would seem to be around 75 percent were in misery poverty despair the Americans and the American government said it was a transition to democratic capitalism and a very good thing for them in foreign policy Washington browbeaten bribed Yeltsin in various ways regarding NATO expansion and the bombing of Serbia in 1999 but I'll give you one illustration from his top Russia advisors memoirs stroke Talbott when Clinton turns to Talbott and worries how much longer and I quote he can turn to Yeltsin and say ok here's what you gotta do next here's some more for your face this is Clinton speaking not me this was the reality that lurked behind the professed strategic friendship and partnership of the Clinton years and it all ended as you know in 1999 Yeltsin forced to retire Russia in your ruins and resentful a once substantially I think Michael would agree pro-american country now not so much so resentful toward America and I tell you for sure the backlash that was coming anyone could have seen it could have been a lot worse than Vladimir Putin a lot worse what happens next under the Bush administration illustrates though how powerful this impulse this triumphalist winner-take-all impulse remained even though it had led to catastrophe in the 1990s no lessons were learned here's the classic example in the aftermath of the attack on America September 2001 Putin a new president not all that strong and against much opposition in Russia gave more material assistance to the American war effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan than any other country in the world including NATO countries we could go through what he gave he saved American lives I don't know how many but he saved American lives he was in search of the real strategic partnership that Yeltsin never got what did Putin get in return he got more democracy promotion in Russia a banner that had flown high in the 1990s and all sorts of colored revolutions semi sponsored by the United States in Russia's neighborhood but more importantly he got another round of NATO expansion from Bush this time a headed right to the Baltics the Russia's borders and this was crucial Bush unilaterally withdrew from the 1972 any ballistic missile treaty now that was in addition to being an excellent thing for all of us the bedrock of Russia's nuclear security policy and we walked away we had the right legally well we walked away a new nuclear arms race you know this is underway today is part of the new Cold War if you ask when that nuclear arms race began Putin spoke about this in an interesting way the other day it began when Bush left the ABM Treaty in 2002 Putin began to protest in his own way he's kind of laid back but he made it clear he was unhappy and finally he blurted it all out do you remember this famous moment in Munich in 2007 was Senator McCain and the others on the front row where he said we are sovereign we want to be your partners but we don't want to be your what did he use the word vassals and things went south from there who now being demonized even more meanwhile in fact under Bush the march in one way or another on Georgia and Ukraine continued so we got the 2008 Russian Ukrainian war European investigative Commission found that Georgian President Saakashvili had started the war this is beyond dispute simply beyond dispute what we don't know or maybe professor McFaul knows I don't know the extent to which Washington did or did not encourage suckers Feeley to attack that to me is a question a legitimate one but I don't know the answer so we come proxy wars cold war horrible charges on both sides being leveled by the time President Obama becomes president I thought he was the man to break with the triumphalist winner-take-all tradition it proved not to be the case I'm not sure why whether this rightfulness of American policy was too deeply ingrained in his head the foreign policy bureaucracies I don't know certainly it was in Congress in the media and with all apologies to Professor McFaul and don't know if he completely disagree the new cold war intensified and spread during the two obama administrations though looking back and now we're talking about revisit the recent history were saying only Putin was to blame but think about some of the things Oh bomber did and didn't do when things didn't go his way with Russia he or he permitted his aides never professor McFaul so far as I know to speak derisively publicly about Russia and Putin we can enumerate the examples culminating in his statement that Russia ranked with Ebola and Isis as one of the three greatest threats to the world an absolutely astonishing statement Obama meddled in the highest Russian politics professor mcfar will correct me if I'm wrong but during the reset 2009 2011 Vice President Biden in Moscow told a group of students Putin should not than Prime Minister should not return to the presidency and I've been told by an aide to Putin that he said that directly to Putin's face that's pretty high-level meddling in the presidential politics of another country I regret to say because I voted for him twice that Obama was deeply complicit in the crisis in Ukraine in 2014 the European Union never should have forced on Kea a choice as a trading partner between the European Union and Russia that was an impossible choice and Obama should never have permitted it but he stood behind it even though Putin turned to him and said why why can't we have a tripart three-way agreement he found no relief in Obama's White House that I know of though I don't know what Professor McFaul was advising and then of course in the events of Madonn whatever we think about Ukraine since 214 what happened there is clear a coup an unusual coup it originated in the streets but it spread overthrew the constitutionally elected President Yanukovych of Ukraine and much followed from that Obama very quickly endorsed the new government very quickly and in December 2016 weirdly I think he sanctioned Russia for Watergate allegations that still haven't been proved even today so we come to this the professor McFaul feels that the reset of which he was a prime shaper and participant I understand shows that my argument is wrong that by now Obama had abandoned this winner-take-all approach to Russia and set us on a new course and it was only because Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 that that achievement was wrecked ruined I read the reset and I you should read McFaul book it is a new book it's a really good book very interesting memoir history politics analysis is very interesting I reread it went back to the section on the reset what I find there is what I found in the reset originally Russia got the START treaty and membership in the WTO or geo those weren't American concessions and nobody considered nuclear security agreements concessions they've been going on for 50 years and nobody said it was a concession to make us safer as for WTO half of the Russian political class didn't want it thought it was a bad idea and whether it's been a good thing for Russia or not is still debated in Russia and it may not last these sanctions now but it wasn't again and there was some stuff about American private investment but that was profit oriented and a relaxed visa regime which is nice for those of us who want to go back and forth and don't have a diplomatic passport what it rush again give excuse me whatever I should give it gave what Obama and I presume professor McFaul wanted it gave sanctions on Iran a crucial rushon neighbor crucial absolutely crucial and it gave an expanded route for supplying American and NATO forces in Afghanistan so we got what we wanted Russia really got nothing oh this was called selective cooperation and best I understand this expression professor McFaul has used it so had as mrs. Clinton and others selective cooperation means we get they give and we pretend it's diplomatic cooperation and you know how the reset ended with another broken promise that yet if then president was told that if he didn't veto America an attack on Libya and it went ahead that veto it at the UN Security Council the United States and his allies would not attempt regime change would not attempt to remove Gaddafi and in fact of course they killed him and Putin remains not only Putin extremely bitter yet another broken promise from Germany to Libya so let me end what's my opinion now because I think those are not just my facts but substantially historical facts so let me end with this this is now my opinion this is where Moynihan authorizes me in my mind and I am a patriot of American national security and that's why I'm worried in my mind reading this as a historian the record shows an aggressive America not aggressive Russia it shows if we come to Putin though all this began before Putin a reactive foreign policy leader and Putin always reacting and in fact this is often said critically about Putin in Moscow but he never initiate she reacts most recently everybody saw Crimea coming he wasn't prepared he went why'd he wait so long in Syria why did he wait on Obama almost a year he's always reacting not this aggressive Putin that's become the explanation of why we are innocent of responsibility for the new Cold War secondly whatever the case American policy has been riddled with double standards I wrote down a list this long I'm only going to give you one we have said in effect that Russia has no legitimate national now we has no legitimate national interest on its own borders and that would really at once is a reactionary sphere of influence Vice President Biden loved to accuse Moscow of this but I ask you what is the expansion of NATO from Germany to Russia's borders other than the largest in history ever peacetime expansion of a sphere of influence American sphere of influence they get none we get it all and when they complain they're condemned for wanting a little spear of influence a zone of security on their own borders this was utter folly however you interpret this 25 years and I'll wrap up very very soon of US policy has not only generated a new Cold War it's made us unsafe Russia is in my judgment America's essential security partner no matter who sits in the Kremlin the washington-led policy is driving in here I don't know how to formulate Professor ball might driving Russia from the West this is a process happened under Stalin it may be happening again and then they say and this is now a mantra and policy analysis and I fear either begun or endorsed by professor Obama that we should seek to isolate Russia in world affairs this is utter folly it's impossible Russia's too big too important to laden with everything the non-west awaits Russia the non West China Iran the BRICS nation all these non-western countries that taken together I can't quite do the numbers in my head that represent 35 to 45 percent of the world's land mass people labor force GDP and future markets who is isolating whom here underlying all this and with this our end is what I call had a voice called the parity principle Russia deserves is entitled to by history by security policy acknowledgement that it is an equal power with the United States with the same national interests and rights we actually acknowledge that grudgingly during the Cold War when you go back and read the protocols of the summit's it was announced for some reason and you see it in the demonization of Putin we don't even recognize Russia as a legitimate power any longer and that I think is the tragedy about which professor McFaul writes in his book I too think it's a tragedy first of all thanks for having me it's a great honor to be here there's a lot of history a lot of facts that I'm gonna go over quickly because I don't have time to do it but what I want you to do is buy the book and read it ok Mother's Day is coming up actually fathers ages is coming up graduation is coming up there's a lot of facts in there that I'm not going to go into in detail I want to give a kind of big argument so that we can get to the debate okay so and I'm gonna think more like a political scientist and bounce around somewhere between a political scientist I'm not a historian although lots of political scientists have accused me of being one by the way and that's a pejorative term in political science just so you know but I'm also a participant right and and this is a little bit awkward for me because on the one hand I'm trying to analyze what's happened on the other hand I was in some of those events that Professor Cohen just described and just to clear up a couple of facts that are not are incorrect he did not say Putin should not run for president in front of students that was at a meeting at Spaso house that was supposed to be off the record with five individuals I was there and he did not say to Putin you shouldn't run for president I was at that meeting as well so read about those facts in my book but I want to do a big-picture take and then hopefully we'll get into some of the nitty-gritty where some things actually I agree with Professor Cohen and then I want to make sure at least by the end we've isolated where we actually do disagree so on the first thing the dependent variable for those of you who studied political science we agree on the outcome whether it's the Cold War this is what maybe I'd have said whether it's worse than the Cold War this is what our president said recently of course on Twitter that's not interesting to me I call it the hot piece deliberately to echo some of the elements that are similar from the Cold War but also to suggest that there are elements that are different and I don't we may be in questions we can talk about this graph in detail but there are some things that are the same there some things are different we're not in a quantitative arms race for instance but we are in a qualitative arms race we are not fighting between communism and capitalism or communism and democracy that's over thank goodness from my point of view but there is an ideological struggle under play under way at least Vladimir Putin most certainly thinks that sometimes we engage sometimes we don't but we would both agree at least I want to be clear about this that the outcome today is scary in some ways is scarier than the end of the Cold War if I for instance was writing the ten commandments for how to behave as a responsible great power I would put at the top of my list thou shalt not use nuclear weapons right put that at the top of my list I put a second thou shalt not annex territory of my neighbor that would be right at the top of my list we didn't have annexation during the end of the in the Cold War for the last two or three decades we do have that also we didn't have sanctions by the way never in the history of us-russian relations was the chief of staff of the Kremlin on the sanctions list that didn't happen during the Cold War that's a new confrontational phenomenon that I was a part of and by the way it's resulted in personal tragedy for me too I'm on the sanctions list as part of the quid pro quo I can't go to Russia this is the longest I've been out of Russia since 1983 the last four years because of that quid pro quo so it's similar and it's different but that's not what I want to focus on in terms of the outcome I think we both agree most certainly my book is about that this is a tragedy and where we disagree though probably is Dovie in a lot by the way its bras Newcombe for those of you I see I see some of the flags dn pop Yeti but also Tobey Nevada who is to blame and I've been asked in this this somewhat debate format that I'm not used to the last time I did a debate I was in high school in Montana by the way our cased because it's in the book it's where the book starts is my junior year in high school and I just moved to a town called Bozeman and the politic the topic was how to improve US trade policy our case that my partner in Iran was repealed the Jackson van Vanek amendment to the 1974 trade I my partner by the way back then is now senator Dayne Stephen Danes from Montana we were pretty good debate team by the way later I was part of the team it took 30 years later but we finally did repeal jackson-vanik when I was in the government but I've been asked to type take the opposite side I don't quite feel comfortable on that and maybe I'll be allowed to be a little more free to not be in this black and white way but I'm gonna play the role that I was asked to for at least for the next ten minutes and my theory my argument is that Russians ended the Cold War and Russians started the hot piece and I'm saying that first one provocatively because I think Russians sometime get left out of this story yes the store was Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev heroes in my view and what they did to end the Cold War no doubt about it there are also other Russians and Ukrainians and Estonians and Latvians and Georgians who also mobilized to end the Cold War these are people this is March 1991 there I am a few seconds see me I'm there Steve were you there yeah yeah we were there and I tell you that story because too often this is always a story of elites getting together concessions between elites I want to remind you that people are also involved and they're involved sometimes in a way that pushes history and what I think is a positive way because I think the end of the Cold War was a celebratory moment and then in other times they get in the way of people sitting behind doors trying to close deals and that's what I'm going to get to when I get to the Obama administration so this happened it was you know it moved in this direction I think we tend to overplay American agency you want to talk about triumphalism it's it's to claim that somehow we we were part of the ending the Cold War and bringing down the dissolution of the Soviet Union and we write out all these people from history as if they didn't do anything I think that's a huge historical mistake but I want to remind you back then because it's easy to forget there's enough gray hair in this room you or you don't forget but when I talk at Stanford I have to remind students that there wasn't continuity between 1989 and 2018 in my view in an interpretation of us-russian relations there was a time when we were on the same side on issues of democracy on issues of markets on issues of Western integration of Russia and professor Cohen mentioned some of those Americans at work were working in the the offices during the government he's absolutely right I was one of them by the way I wasn't working in the government but I work for an NGO at the time I want to remind you we weren't meddling we were invited we were there because the Russian government that democratically elected president of the russian government Boris Yeltsin invited in there whether that was good or bad we can judge but let's be clear they were we were not there somehow Oh doing regime change we were there doing regime consolidation at the invitation of these people and so remember the 90s were up and down and I'm gonna skip through this because I want to get to the punchline about what happened and to try to just tell you what happened the story and I think I'll just focus on the Obama era because that's the part I know best and that to me is the most consequential because that's the most consequential part of my book it is true all of these things happen things that Professor Cohen just talked about these are facts I agree with Professor Cohen when I go back and I look at it I actually think the Great's and was not who what was promised to Gorbachev in 1990 about NATO expansion by the way I'd i've done some negotiating with the russians it's really strange to me that you just agree to agree usually you write things down and you codify it in treaties but that that's a minor issue I think the greatest sin was that we didn't engage with those that wanted to be part of the West that wanted to have a democratic society that wanted to have real markets and the rule of law we drifted away remember it was the economy stupid night back in 1992 nobody was paying attention to what was happening then and if we have time and questions I think that's worth thinking about that counterfactual but these other ones happened NATO expanded Serbia was bombed Iraq was invaded no let me let me rephrase that we bombed Serbia we bombed Iraq we expanded NATO all those things happened and the color revolutions of Serbia 2000 Georgia 2003 Ukraine 2004 we didn't do those things I think it our roll like usual Americans exaggerating their role and what other small D Democrats are doing all of these events most certainly however intensified conflict and tension in us-russian relations that is true that all happened and yet after all of those things there was this period called the reset I was part of the government and it was a strategy to try to get back to where we were in the 90s there I am that's my fourth day at work it's his fourth day of work too we both actually he's got different more different hair than I do I shouldn't have said that we're streamlining aren't we I'm actually gonna see the president tomorrow to give him my book and he's not gonna agree with all of it by the way I'll get to that in a minute but we came in and all that drama had happened by the way for the purposes of time I'm skipping over the drama that Russia initiated August 1998 financial collapse the two chechen wars the invasion of Georgia they they were doing some things too that made things more confrontational and building autocracy during those eight years of the Putin presidency but when we came in we wanted to reset things pit has a grewcica for those that speak Russian we sat down with the president we told them about all this stories you know well you know we're not cooperating this because this and that and some cultural thing there were people that wanted to argue about you know Russians are destined to be in tension with us and president-elect Obama first and then President Obama said hey I don't really get it like don't Russians and want to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world it was like yes mr. president actually we think they do that's good don't they want to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon answer that as yes so why is it that we can see not concessions professor Cohen we never use the word concessions I think that's a bad word in diplomacy like you said nobody has any friends nobody does any favors every country and every leader is seeking to obtain to pursue their national interests as defined by them might one of my beasts with Putin as he defines it in bad ways I think not just for America but for Russians themselves let's leave that aside for now but Obama's idea we're not going to get to yes unless they think it's in their interests and so let's look for things that are what he called and he used this phrase many many times in dealing with both Medvedev and Obama win-win outcomes we're not seeking any concessions we're seeking win-win outcomes and you know read the book for the details I'll just go through this quickly but I was there we got a lot of big things done and I want to remind you if you've never served in government it's hard to do anything in government my god I only was there for five years most the time you just stand in place you just be you the bureaucratic process drags you down there are other actors right they all get a vote Russia China Iran they get our vote and a lot of times you're just like pulling your hair doing nothing you're being you're not doing but there was a period where we did some big things this is a great day for me this is Prague 2010 we're signing the START treaty we are reducing nuclear weapons it was not an arms race we were reducing nuclear weapons that were allowed in the two countries ourselves by 30% that's a big thing vice president would say that's a big and then add the adjective begins with F that was a big thing in fact and then ratification something that's pretty hard these days in American politics that's the day we ratified the START treaty that was a big a big deal to we got some other things done as Professor Cohen mentioned we opened up the northern distribution network we went from 2 percent to over 60 percent of our supplies going through Russia and Central Asia that was for us designed to reduce our dependency on Pakistan is 90 percent of our supply routes went through Pakistan at the time and we had an idea that we were gonna bring our war of terror we war against terrorists we called it something different but that's what it was we plan to violate the sovereignty of Pakistan as we you all know now and we did at one time in a very dramatic way when we killed Osama bin Laden in 2011 that could not have happened without ndn being in place Russia and the United States were cooperating and I disagree that ndn was a concession I disagree with that because we and in fact I remember very vividly we are at April 1st 2009 we're in London first meeting with my bf and he had just if you remember announced that Russia is entitled to its privileged sphere of influence that's the phrase he used and at that time literally if it's April it was February February 2009 president but Kiev had just come to Moscow met with Prime Minister Putin not meketa he received a two billion economic assistance package later turned out to be incredibly corrupt as we learned later corrupt with American money to mr. but Kiev was he took money from both sides in a corrupt way ah but the quid pro quo for that is you have to close manasa airbase which at that time over 90% of our soldiers use as a staging ground before going into Afghanistan in Kyrgyzstan so we sat down with Medina we sat down the president sat down with me via def and I was at the table taking notes ok let's be clear about that and you don't know about this because we didn't read it out this way because we didn't know where this was gonna go I was the guy that read out that meeting senior administration official si OS that was my job during these meetings but here's what the president said he said look he likes that word look I'm the new guy the sphere of influence thing you know it feels kind of 19th century to me I don't really get it like how having Kyrgyzstan and your sphere of influence that's good for you but if we have it it's good for us he just explained very straightforwardly what do we do at Mehnaz we have our soldiers take hot showers they get some sleep eat some hot food and then they don't do anything in kyrgyzstan they're out at the base every now and then they do and then cause some troubles I had to deal with that when I was at the White House they're not there for regime change and meddling they're out by the airport and then they get on airplanes and they go to forward operating bases and they go and pursue and kill terrorists al-qaeda and Taliban that want to also kill you mr. he didn't this is I'm paraphrasing right obviously President Obama would never talk this crudely as I am but the point was we have a common enemy here this is helping us fight that war that win-win outcome oh and by the way we're buying a billion dollars of fuel from you at Mehnaz yeah a billion dollars worth check it out it's in my book and he's trying to say isn't that a win-win outcome this sphere of influence thing if we close manasa does that make you better off and for the next six years manasa stayed open as a vital piece of India third Iran sanctions that was tougher professor Cohen you're right about sanctions on a run that was tougher and in fact at that same Prague meeting that I just showed you all the pomp and circumstance drinking champagne that was all fun the substance of that meeting was about Iran and President Medvedev said to President Obama he said look and by the way at the at the press conference for the signing of that that the signing ceremony right at the end President Medvedev said in English he said most certainly Barack this is a win-win outcome for both of our countries he parrot he was echoing what he had heard from Obama many times we got behind closed doors he said hey this isn't a win-win for us we got trade with this country we got we got more there we've signed an agreement to sell them the s-300s this is not this is asymmetric you guys got nothing going on and President Obama as I write about in the book said two things he said one I hear you and we're gonna lift some sanctions on some of your countries to make this easier for you and we did that and we're gonna deliver the one-two-three agreement so that we could cooperate on nuclear energy we did that and then he made a bunch of bolder argument he said in the long run I want you to think that your bilateral relationship with my country will be more valuable than your bilateral relationship with Iran and that's how we got the Security Council resolution we did and then in a cooperative win-win way sitting with the Russians you don't get the Iran deal without the Russians involved we got a great deal a fantastic deal that tragically our president has just nope this week finally on security results history can't just be about the things you see they have to also be about non events these get written out of history and for me the greatest scariest non-event of my time at the White House was when the Kiev the president I just described to you from Kyrgyzstan he was overthrown he fled the Belarus hundred people were killed 300,000 ethnic Uzbeks went in twos beckus an and it felt like we were on the verge of a color revolution but this was tins with ethnic genocide 'el civil war that's what it felt like I was scared to death because I thought that was going to be on our watch we in the Obama administration but you didn't read about that because it didn't happen because back then the heyday of the reset President Obama called President Medvedev and said you don't have an interest and we don't have an interest in thinking of this in a zero-sum way let's work together with our sides to try to move this in the right direction and in fact the former transitional president she was just out to see me last week Rose autumn by Ava we were recalling it last week we agreed on that that this would be a good outcome a transitional president by the way it could have been a model for other places at other times which I'll get to in a minute I'll go faster about these things I just want to remind you this is not ancient history folks this is five or six years ago these are Russian and Americans jumping out of planes in Colorado Springs professor Cohen went over this list I won't go over it but we did all these things and this was win-win this is not zero-sum when Boeing is investing in Russia they're hiring Russian scientists that's a win-win that's good for Boeing that's good for Russia all of these things I would argue were good for both sides and by the way about WTO accession it's a fair point not everybody has supported but the government of Russia was our negotiating team like they were elected that you know you have to about if they're signing the agreement you know who is it for us to say they be signing that agreement that that's their decision to join the WTO that wasn't our decision but we helped them to do that and then finally on the the good news and then I'm going to turn to the bad news and end just remember five or six years ago over 60% of Russians you know you see the peak there had a positive view of the United States of America and vice versa that was just five years ago and my point is all of that stuff happened after NATO expansion after the Iraq war after the orange revolution so you can't use these variables to go back to my political science jargon to explain our current conflict without having a theory for that cooperation that I just described all these things happen and they didn't get it in the way of the list of things that I just described you for in fact NATO expansion I was on every single phone call with the president when I worked at the White House every single meeting he had with both mid Vienna from Putin and I attended most of the meetings that they had when I was ambassador NATO expansion never came up once not one single time and you know why because it wasn't an issue during this period our Republican conservative critics blamed us that it wasn't an issue I just want to remind you you know we should have Bob Kagan in this debate too so we have a triangle here but it wasn't because we weren't nobody was talking about to the government nobody was talking about Georgian membership into NATO NATO didn't want it nobody was talking about Ukrainian main membership into NATO the Ukrainians didn't wanted even Yushchenko didn't wanna we went there in the summer of 2009 there was no support for that in Ukraine they were focused on the EU after Yanukovych wins the issue was dead so that gets me to what I think was the driver of the end of the reset and the the real moment that we're in today sorry two big events two big events one as Professor Cohen already described Putin decides to come back as president September 2011 I remember it vividly I was already going through confirmation hearings and then suddenly it's like oh okay no now I'm going to be working with the different government and then the demonstrations in Russia 2011-2012 I actually went in to brief the president a couple days after Putin announced that he was going to run for president and it was about something else then he pulled me back in and he said well what do you think like what are we gonna do and I being ever the optimist I said well mr. president you know you've dealt with mid vieta if he's close to you but you know Putin we're gonna have to deal with them we have our interest we're gonna engage with them we've gates before and remember Putin's always been the big dog right they the conventional wisdom was always Putin's in charge that Madhvi edifice just this puppet and so there should be continuity right and the president looked at me and said come on man I don't I shouldn't I don't want to put words into the mouth of the president he looked at me skeptically and he said you know that this is gonna be a big change and and I agreed with him because we saw these two gentlemen up close and personal and it turns out they had pretty radically different views of the world Madhvi Arif was a young guy ten years younger ten years less living in the Soviet Union lawyer he had lots of affinity lots of overlap with Obama Putin much older trained in the KGB and his analytic framework was formed then and these are the things he saw sees things in zero-sum terms not win win +2 for America - 2 for Russia we are a competitor for him not a partner and that that tendency wasn't there at the beginning and maybe in questions we can talk about this I think it's grossly oversimplified to think in 2000 Booton had this worldview it evolved over time but the third ones are most important and I'm going to end on this he has a view of America that a theory hypothesis that we use over and covert power to overthrow regimes we don't like and there's a lot of empirical data to support that hypothesis that mr. Putin has about American foreign policy over the last 70 years war in Iraq Serbia 2000 and we actually sat down we debated it with him yeah July 2009 about what this went on for about three and a half hours and he went through all the list of all the terrible things we had done for him he was ready baby he came prepared he had his every point and and you know going through all the terrible awful things that Bush had done to him not Bush actually the Bush administration he liked President Bush it was the Bush administration that deep state that they were the one causing all the trouble and they got to Iraq and he went on about how stupid that was horrible all the horrible things that had happened and the president who had listened to him that by now but for 58 minutes and so thank you for being good listeners to to the two of us he looked at him and he said you're right I agree with you it was hey hold on you're the Americans what do you mean you agree with me he didn't say that but he was kind of startled by that like why isn't he talking about the continuity in American policy and Obama was saying no I'm different I don't believe in regime change I you may not know this mr. prime minister I was against that war long before it was popular to be against that war and as we walked out to the cars you know I could hear in Putin's voice thinking well maybe this guy is different maybe we will have a different kind of relationship but he said I'm done dealing with you guys I've been there done that with Bush but knock yourself out with Prime Minister President Putin and then two years later a bunch of things happen Egypt Libya Syria and Russia these are the event that led to the current confrontation by the way on Libya I was with in the room with President Medvedev in the Kremlin when he agreed to abstain on that UN Security Council resolution that Professor Cohen and talked about and he knew he knew that that was going to lead to our use of military force first time in history that Russia or the Soviet Union had agreed to that two days later once that resolution passed Prime Minister Putin for the first time ever criticized him for that because he thought that made Vienna had gone too far in being cooperative with us and I think in retrospect that was the beginning of the end of the reset for us but this was the punctuation mark because in all of these events Hooton never believed that that's Democrats themselves would organize he always thought it's the CIA behind that right we overthrew Mubarak we we did this we did that we did that and especially this was dramatic and consequential for him because the last time that it happened was 20 years earlier when the Soviet Union collapsed an event he called the greatest tragedy of the 20th century and remember he's running for president during those demonstrations those were demonstrations about a falsified election and so he needed a new narrative to say that these people are criminals they're they're patsies they're traitors they are under our our skin and they begin to blame us America Obama and when I got there me personally and so I'll skip through this we can we can go through it and you can read the book but that's when he decided that we were to blame we were the foam answers of these revolutions and I just want to state for the record on the facts we were not giving money to the opposition I was not handing out money to Navalny that is not true I was not the the McFaul girls these are that the various opposition leaders outward that I supposedly was funding here's some more you've heard of disinformation well I was a target of a lot of disinformation at this time Here I am allegedly campaigning for Navalny on the right and Here I am organizing the demonstrations in may 6 2012 that you may recall ended violently this was actually the low point no it's not funny please don't laugh it's not funny this is February 2012 this was put out of course no rock we have a free press that we had nothing to do with it of course of course we got it pulled down YouTube we I have some friends at Google we got it pulled down and it reappeared and reappeared and reappeared tweeted out you go on Yandex now you put pedophile McFaul and Yandex 4,000,000 searched what he called thank you come up so and it wasn't just me this is another thing from Russian television at that time comparing Barack Hussein Obama to the leader of Isis Abu Bakr al-baghdadi same ideology all of this have stuff we didn't change the reset we didn't change one thing not one thing in our policy the thing we had adopted in 2009 was what we were doing at this time what changed is Putin inside the government and this mobilization against what he thought it was his national interest and then the last straw which has already been mentioned the fall of Yanukovych in February 2004 I've been speaking for 30 minutes oh my god oh then I'm gonna stop I'll stop with this because professor Cohen mentioned it I'm sorry about that guys I thought we were I didn't I was not paying attention so y'all being about torching this event right there was a debate whether they should join the accession agreement or not our view just so you know and I argued it was you can join as many great agreements as you want knock yourselves out America is part of dozens maybe doesn't tens of dozens of trade agreements as long as they don't get in the way of each other why shouldn't the sovereign country of Ukraine have the right to choose who they want to trade with that's their choice not Russia's choice Russia doesn't get a veto about what Ukraine does but Danny Yanukovych made his decision and there was this guy Mustafa Nayeem is his name he said this this guy I think he even used the words foolish he said who is he to say what we should do and if you are with me come to the streets of my dawn and we're gonna push for Ukraine to be part of Europe and that's what happened in my dawn must if I aim did it wasn't Joe Biden there wasn't Toria Nuland it wasn't Barack Obama his name's moose defining I just saw him ten days ago and you and then this thing got violent people were killed and that's when we intervened we should have been involved earlier maybe we'll talk about that and we with Europeans tried to cut a deal between the opposition and mr. Yanukovych President Yanukovych poor Joe Biden on the phone back and forth trying to get a deal to avoid bloodshed and push new elections to the future February 21st we got a deal big I was in Sochi I remember my blackberry was blowing up this is a great victory for American diplomacy six hours later Yanukovych shows up and rust off and for reasons I still a mysterious to me but they weren't mysterious to Putin that was us that was a CIA again an overthrow his ally and that's when he decided to annex Crimea and when that was cheap he decided to annex not to annex - to support those separatists in eastern Ukraine and to me that is the cause of our current conflict with Russia Putin in reaction I actually agree with Professor Cohen he is he reacts to these things but there's some pretty horrible reactions annexation supporting Assad one of the worst killers in the world today intervening in our elections that did not even happen during the Cold War those are the ways he reacts and then therefore I think it's appropriate that we have to tragically push back on those things thank you for your patience Thanks okay thanks to both our speakers as you can see we stuck really tightly to the logistics that I laid out of 15 minutes for each speaker and if Steve's gonna tout his daughter I will say my daughter has been doing a tech crew this year so this was a really fast smooth the stage change here for a bunch of academics oh no we were able to do this this quickly so uh okay what we're gonna do now and I am gonna keep the speakers to this yes we're gonna give them each five minutes to respond to what was said by the other so we're gonna start off with Professor Cohen he's gonna have five minutes and then five minutes for progressive McFaul and then we're gonna start with the questions from the audience and from online as well so professor Cohen I apologize to everyone in the room including professor McFaul for speaking too long and for Justin I do too by the way yeah we've saved in about T we're both at fault yeah Tina but I just took a couple corrective remarks and then I want to ask professor for a question and he can have all the collective time the pedophile thing is horrible there's no justifying it but let me point out that in the London Review of Books the editors permitted a very well-known very well-known American Canadian writer on Russia to call Putin have been a file this is the kind of thing that obviously no decent person is associated with but it's what cold war brings upon us we've seen it before um jackson-vanik yeah but you replaced it with Magnitsky which was worse you had a chance it had a chance to in sanctions and look where we are now now the START treaty I know you know and I don't think you're being deceitful but I wonder if you and Obama understood that you put a time bomb under the START treaty with this missile defense stuff the Russians thought they had a commitment from you that you would not deploy missile defense other well that's what they said I mean oh god true I let me just finish my and then you go ahead but stop and think where we're at as long as we send these missile defense installations to ring Russia on land and sea Russia isn't gonna give up its nuclear arsenals or cut it very much so I think President Obama when he came back and in order to get Senate ratification signed that letter to the Senate that he would pursue missile defense to the maximum I'm correct about that he didn't show rulership he should have fought and now my question and I stopped professor McFaul I don't understand Michael what you mean but it's very important because of my conception of what went wrong when you say if I understood you that the reset was conceived as a way to return to the 1990s because in my mind almost everything that went wrong that began in the 1990s so if you can explain that or if I misunderstood it seems to me to be to go right to the disagreements between us great I'll be really quick I hope so first of all Jackson Matt Vanek yes that was true Magnitsky we sign and I defend the Magnitsky people that commit human rights abuses in Russia do not have the right to get a visa to come to our country I'm sorry you don't get a right it's not in our Constitution that you have a right to do that we do that with all our other countries all over the world by the way if you're a human rights abuser we track that it got codified in this way that maybe was more in their face but but you know if you're part of a wrongful death and it's as proven and we went through the work to do that you do not have a right to go to Disneyland in my view on the START treaty there we did not promise limits on missile defense I was part of the negotiating team we knew just because you exactly the ream you said we could not do that because we wouldn't have get the Senate ratification but we also know we talked to them about missile defense deployments that we have made in Europe can do nothing against Russian ICBMs nothing they have that this is a question of physics is not a question of opinion okay and in fact we were so eager to show credible commitment to that we actually change the Interceptor we wouldn't was gonna put 10 GB is 10 GB is by the way nothing against their arsenal GB is if you rearm them can actually attack Russia in an offensive way we took them out we replace them with sm-3 sm-3s have no way to catch Russian ICBMs in Poland the best place to put interceptors if you want to shoot down warheads remember you don't shoot down missiles another misconception is not in the chase because they can't catch up there in Alaska and that's where we did our deployment of GB ice we have 44 there and putting them there 44 right remember they have the the right to fifteen hundred and fifty warheads so we're not going to protect ourselves in some ways we we don't want them to disarm we want it to maintain euphemistically we call that strategic stability otherwise known as mutual assured destruction and then finally I'm glad you raised by the way we also took the radar out of the Czech Republic the EMR and put them closer to Iran so that they didn't have capability with Russian ICBMs that was a huge concession that our critics criticized us for and I actually misspoke I'm glad you brought it up not return to the 90s return to a time when we were seeking win-win outcomes you and I probably have a disagreement about some of those win-win outcomes in the 90s but what I meant was that if you look at President Obama's speech and I really really hear your urge you to look at it he actually talked about the 90s his big speech on Russia July 2009 where he acknowledged that that was a horrible time for Russia he was the first president ever to say that he went on for two paragraphs by the way about May 9th go read the speech is there you don't have to believe me and he said and it was very controversial in our White House he said I believe a strong prosperous Russia is in American national interest no president had ever said that before okay all right thanks to both of you I'm gonna turn it over to Alex he's gonna take some of the questions that we have from the audience okay the first one is going to go to Professor Cohen so it's actually about going beyond Russia's security interests what are the legitimate security interests of Ukraine or Georgia there what are their legitimate interests security interests well they certainly haven't achieved any what they're unwise policies so the first thing to do is rethink that they're certainly not very secure today I don't know how you define security interests I would say that for small countries like that the absence of foreign bases in its country there's the first step toward that I would think that making peace with its neighbors diplomatically gives them the security at once those two countries need a stable non militarized environment to prosper I don't think Russia is a threat to them I don't think we're a threat to them what's happening is is that as in the other Cold War but now it's in Europe not in Africa we've got proxy wars breaking out all over the place including in Syria so I would argue if I were a politician in Ukraine or some how many Ukraine's existed I'm not sure or in Georgia that the first commandment of security for my country is it will not take part in proxy wars so I I was just in Ukraine two weeks ago I don't know and I just want to make sure that when you're in Ukraine Russia's chill certainly feels like a threat they have annexed territory they have supported separatists with weapons and they have supported separatists with their own soldiers over 10,000 people have died it feels when you're in Kiev that you are at war with so it feels like a legitimate threat that needs to be dealt with and by the way I could be wrong on this the only foreign base that's in Ukraine today is a Russian base okay and this one is going to go to ambassador McFaul so this is from Alexis Lerner who's a PhD student at the University of Toronto and visiting scholar here at Columbia and it's about the impact of sanctions on student exchanges the State Department raised its travel advisory in March to level three diplomats have been evacuated on both sides and schools around the nation have ended their rush of study abroad programs considering the barriers that these decisions pose to student engagement in Russia what avenues remain for young people to improve or get involved with the us-russia relations and just for me to editorialize on that isn't this one of the ways in which were shooting ourselves in the foot with some of these sanctions yes I totally did I totally agree I emphatically agree that it was a giant mistake for the State Department to raise that level because that meant for concretely for Stanford University because of our rules we cannot send our students to st. Petersburg this this fall as it was planned that was a giant mistake IIIi urged them to roll it back but I want to remind you that Putin also is rolling back these things he closed out any any flex alumni here by the chance any yeah great program fantastic program he shut that down i I agree the more connectivity between our societies and the better our countries will be even when we disagree on big things the more interaction we have between our societies I think the better off we'll be thank you okay um so we have a question from Twitter which is from at lusco Claudio which is essentially the question is about the usefulness of the term Cold War at this particular time so if there's no competition between rival political ideologies the international system is no longer bipolar there's a huge discrepancy between the size of the economies what leverage are we essentially getting from this term a new Cold War and is it are we overusing this term because we don't have in international relations because we don't have in the in the punditry we don't have been even a cooler a better term for describing something that is different in these ways from previously sure we do it's the hot it's the hot piece baby pressico you know I learned a lot of things reading a professional McFaul this book but I learned something absolutely startling here today from him when he said that Obama begins sentences look and of course you know many Russians begin sentences Veda SH so it's kind of good to know I mean you could have built on that of things to create an entire we tried to milk the the name of his daughter as much as we could just say you know okay what was the question sorry who was it - just just one yeah I mean there was a question how does doctor how do you how does dr. Collins there's no cold war so look I'm the wrong and the right person to ask beginning in the 1990s during the strategic partnership with Russia so-called I began warned in my writings that we were creating a very cold peace and it could become a new Cold War this was in the 90s in the early 2000s I was calling it a new Cold War I was widely criticized mostly with references made here that where's the ideology well professor McFaul and I see the ideology emerging now I mean this so-called conservative reactionary traditional Russia against the liberal enlightened West it's miss formulated but certainly an enormous ideological component has emerged in the last year or two or maybe a little longer we just had to be patient as for Russia not being strong Russia is plenty strong to fight a cold war and if it comes to that a hot war where the new Cold War has unfolded that in regions where it has enormous advantages its own geopolitical area look what he did in Sir I mean the newspapers tell us today our trunk tells us today we destroyed Isis in Syria this is utter nonsense and I fear Michael that during Obama's time in office the Islamic state just took more and more territory in Syria until Putin intervened and people say that's an apology for Putin and no you know what it is Putin formulated that question right when he talked to Obama several times about it and he said choose who do you want in Damascus Assad or the Islamic state and I personally preferred Assad because if nothing else Assad is the protector of the Jews and the Christians whereas the Islamic state was very busy chopping off their heads I didn't think there was much choice here and why Obama could have agreed with Putin on that one crucial element and left us left us with this catastrophe we have today I don't understand me above all President Obama should have understood what was at stake there and so when you asked about the elements of the new Cold War that's not Cold War I don't know what is so I'm gonna skip the Cold War piece I mean III we tend to agree I would in nuances it's similar but different but let me do respond to this piece about Syria because the longest chapter in my book is about Syria and it has to be long because it's tragic and I think we made some mistakes and I won't go through them all now but I will I have a somewhat different interpretation of those conversations and I was there for several of them 2011 happened remember there were peaceful demonstrations in Syria people forget this well long before you'd ever heard that of Isis and and in in Tunisia and in Egypt and when we sat down with Putin and in fact the the that photo that I showed you of them looking very dour that was in Los Cabos Mexico and that's when we spent over an hour and a half just talking about Syria and they had different analytic frameworks for how to deal with this problem the president said to Putin he said Reedus look I don't know if he said that he said we didn't cause this thing we had nothing to do with it but our assessment is right our analytic assessment is that if Assad stays and there's not some political agreement two things are gonna happen this is our theory of the case and I was a part of this by the way as a social scientist filling in this theory I had actually written about this as that as a PhD student for four thousand years ago if you don't get agreement now when it's peaceful two things are gonna happen it's gonna get violent and terrorists are gonna show up the extremists are gonna show up and the peaceful folks are gonna disappear we didn't know that we're gonna be slaughtered and killed but they're gonna disappear for the new arena so our argument to Putin work with us now to try to get that agreement that kind of agreement and that's what we chased the Russians around for the next two years might the title of that book that chapter is called chasing Russians failing Syrians Putin had a different theory he said you guys are naive about the Middle East you don't understand these societies these are these are conservative societies what they need to modernize and by the way he said this about Assad and Mubarak so it wasn't choosing sides this is his theory about how change comes about is you need a strong hand to push them forward Mubarak was that and Assad was that those were that was the exchange we had in Los Cabos fast forward to the future our theory Obama's theory was right that's exactly what happened tragically exactly what happened Assad stayed doubled down terrorists from all over the world flew in not just Isis all over the world including many thousands from Russia by the way and things got polarized they opted that the the moderate opposition disappeared and and went into exile and Assad you know like Putin said use a strong hand I've my own theory is that he thinks of Chechnya as the way to deal with terrorists that's how you deal with terrorists and that's what he thinks his guy did there and he thought that Assad was doing it that desaad wasn't winning and that's when Putin went from theoretician to actor and in intervene in Syria to prop up his guy they did not fight Isis that is just not true they avoided Isis for two to three years and 2014 operation inherent resolve we went in and fought Isis on the other side of the river you can go look at the maps we fought them for three years and thankfully the Trump administration continued that they barely went over on that side that Isis was over there other terrorists were on the other side that's true all news from al Qaeda they fought them Isis was our fight now we're left with the terrible stalemate we've achieved victory on one side out in the East Assad is achieve victory on his side and there is not a resolution for how you now get this country back together okay we've had a we've had a bunch of comments come in on Twitter in the last minute here reacting to Professor Cohen to some of the comments you've just made about in general building on this idea of whether or not Russia is entitled to a buffer zone a security zone outside of it and the threat that it poses to its neighbors so I just would want to give you a chance a little bit more we've gotten questions so we have one from right which i think is coming from the nyu viewing perhaps but from a student at NYU Ben Dalton shouldn't the independent states of Eastern Europe have the freedom to enter any security associate they wish and that and and then should they be able to enter the any security thing so I guess how do you balance between the sovereignty of the states of Eastern Europe and even if we want to push forward in the sovereignty of states and Ukraine and Georgia and this trigger that that we've talked about here today of Russia feeling threatened by encroachment by the possibility of the the reality of some of these states joining NATO and then the possibility of some of the others seeking to join NATO in the future how do we draw that line how do we draw that balance how do you draw it and thinking about it well it's about proposals isn't it it's the question of all questions if we could sell this problem of how you reconcile two forces in the world we could make peace be Tisch we all would agree I can only give you bullet point answers Russia is entitled not only Russia we're talking about Russia just as we have claimed an entitlement to absence of foreign military bases on its borders now what that means in the age of missiles needs to be elaborated and it's a separate discussion but let's remember the Monroe Doctrine which we continue to they claim to second point all may will upset a lot of people but I believe and by the way it's the job of historians to keep an eye on the accounts of people who were in the room in other words we will use my balls book when we write the history of this period but not only his book correct and verse drafts not the last draft of history ok so I hear him relating some narratives with which I profoundly disagree but I don't think we could get we should get bogged down in that so let me make this point the question has become and remained was it wise to expand NATO the way we did and the way we did was taking anybody basically who wanted to be in and that's what we're doing now you know we do this this and this and come on in and this is entirely wrong provocative and undermines our own security NATO is not a non-selective or sorority it is not the American Association of Retired people which my 26 year old daughter can join for $12 and get all sorts of discounts on rental cars NATO is a security organization and its sole purpose to the extent that it had a purpose and half who has one is to provide security for its original members every time it takes in a nation that is not only unqualified but has conflicts that could drag NATO and all of us into war it undermines our security so then you say what do you do about a country that's I don't think the Baltic countries are threatened by Russia but let's say that do you think Russia's for threatened by the Baltic States no I don't think how that looks when you're in Estonia it's kind of odd to think well the stony is threatening Russia is a great excuse me Latvia says everyday oh my god oh my god the Russians are coming right and then we say okay here's another division and now we can hit st. Petersburg with ordinary artillery not missiles ordinary artillery you and I know st. Petersburg that's a little different in our lifetime wouldn't you agree Russian artillery can hit those countries too professor Cohen just be clear they have tremendous military capability that goes the other way thanks to two tangos I want to disarm that's great but Russia has to do it too but how didn't I how didn't they do get on that territory that's the very point how did he get from Berlin to work in him laughs his democratic societies chose who they wanted to associate with that should be the way it works [Applause] all right okay there's definitely respectful differences of opinion here we're gonna switch we're gonna change change up the topic on this because we're quickly running out of time yeah quickly running out of time both professor Cohen professor McFaul did such thorough jobs sort of walking us through the 20 and 25 year history that we had in the post Cold War period which is kind of amazing but it didn't leave a lot of time for talking about the current situation between the two countries right now so we're gonna start with a provocative question which came from our audience here at Columbia which is directed to ambassador McFaul but we'll let we'll let both people weigh in on it do you believe Putin has compromised on Trump you can answer that however you want to answer that let's go back to NATO so I'm actually not gonna answer that question cuz I don't know and I want mr. Muller and his team to figure it out and I don't I never want to get ahead of the skis of the facts here's a couple of things I do know about how Putin operates and what I think has already been proven we disagree about the the facts of 2016 I don't think it's an alleged Watergate well maybe I don't want to put words in your mouth professor Cohen let me just say what I believe Russia intervened in our presidential election to impact the outcome in a certain way Putin very rationally wanted candidate Trump to succeed and candidate Clinton to fail he looked at what they were talking about and if I were Putin I would want that too what was audacious and wrong and I just you know wake up America I can't believe how asleep at the wheel we are about this is that he used incredible capacity cyber capacity they have incredible capacities second maybe only to the United States and catching up fast to go and steal data as they did and then leaked it to WikiLeaks in a way that was designed to hurt one of the candidates that to me is clear as day that evidence is there number two please please please we're gonna leave it to leave innocent people at this age I would just encourage okay I'm gonna ask the audience to please be respectful and quiet otherwise we will ask you to leave the room thank you I'm hey excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me excuse me Thanks I think so I'm gonna put in an opinion so that we don't have to be screamed at the evidence is overwhelming I know some of those people that gather that evidence part of the government and you can believe what you want but I actually think facts matter in debates as president column said and I believe that those facts are overwhelming all right and we we are we are limiting thank you letting you can come have your own you know have your own event another day okay number two there also was intervention in terms of information and and support you know should Russia Russian entities be allowed to buy ads on Facebook I'm not sure they should be allowed to do that I I'm a big American first guy I'm a sovereignty guy I don't want I wouldn't want us to do that I must certainly would not want us to do that in Russia and so they did those things I think that is rather overwhelming what they did and now I've already forgot the question comfort that's my comment maybe that's all I need to say okay professor ko either both folks and then argue with me on Twitter I guarantee you all respond there but not here I'm not a question about that to come I mean the problem is is that when you interrupt professor McFaul it's not proper but also you chew up my time a little trust I have no idea I don't think we should grade universities by even talking about it but this whole Watergate they intervened in our election trampled on our sovereignty this is hyperbolic until we get some evidence and there is none at least okay we're just gonna agree to disagree right I haven't formally yet no formulate a way you can agree okay great I'm Rabbinical it takes me a while keep going keep going I apologize keep going and as we say in my faith if you don't like the answer I'll find you another rabbi every day I read in the papers Russia meddled interfere in our 2015 presidential elections I'm shocked shocked shocked of course they did meddling in the other's elections began when or internal affairs began when Woodrow Wilson sent I think 33 American soldiers to fight in the Russian Civil War and then they form something called the Communist international the Comintern and it's job was meddling everywhere and not just with other members of the Communist Party and he went on and on and on and so I'm a generation older than McFaul so my living memory is it a little bit longer but I can't remember a time when they didn't meddle in one way or another and our elections or related hairs and we didn't do the same and it's not great but so what I mean it's jaywalking please so yeah they meddled but did they do the more extreme things there's no proof yet it may come to light so yeah I'm well this is very oh that's great we agree or abound by a fashion but I would add one thing notice something interesting the intelligence report which was the along with the Stila dossier the foundational documents for the narrative said person personally ordered this notice that in this foul affair in United Kingdom which has fallen completely apart it was said by may and foreign minister Johnson Putin personally everything that becomes critical of Russia has become person now I am sure they have no way of actually knowing this they may have a mole on the Kremlin they may understand his communications it's possible but they would never reveal they could do that never ever ever yeah so a great deal of this today is but but but it is a reason why the new Cold War's more dangerous you know in with this point I was alive in 1962 not entirely adult conscious but alive when the Cuban Missile Crisis my memory of it is somewhat different from what I read in history books now which is interesting when you go back and you lift them something I need the book but here's the thing it's become an axiom of the nuclear age that John Kennedy saved us and I would only add with qu strops help Khrushchev backed off and then they made a secret deal about the missiles in Turkey which we've told later right but yes Kennedy set an example of how when you're on the precipice you avoid nuclear war you know what the consequence of these Russia Gate allegations is today President Trump could not do that with all this talk that he's a puppet of the Kremlin or they've got comp Ramada on him that he somehow compromised by financial dealings with the gremlin if we come to a Cuban Missile Crisis moment and we could have in Syria three weeks ago we could have we didn't and we might still the President of the United States cannot do his most sacred duty and save us from nuclear war because of this Watergate that's why it's got to stop now and that's why the moon I don't care personally I don't care who Trump Pete honor didn't beyond what I care about is that if we come to a Cuban Missile Crisis he is free to be a rational statesman and I don't see that he has any room to maneuver today whatsoever we should think what we're doing okay so let's go for one more this goes to ambassador McFaul is withdrawal from the Iranian nuclear deal a major setback and how will this affect US Russia relations going forward yes I think it's a major setback for the simple reason here's how you have to evaluate agreements and pulling out withdrawal are we better today than we were with that agreement are we more secure my answer is emphatically no so what did we gain by withdrawing I honestly don't even understand the theory of the case like what you know how is this gonna make us safer the president has not articulated what that is I hope he has a plan B that's more than just regime change because that's by the way what his his commentators that are close to the White House I just talked to one two hours ago that's what they're alluding to I that will be a disaster I hope it's something more rational than that I fear it's not that's number one and with respect to Russia you know think about this what if your goal was to unite the NATO alliance China Russia and almost every other country on the planet what's the one thing you could do that's what the President did we're standing on the outside here we're the ones that are the outliers that everybody else is good and that for me that is not defending America's national interests professor Cohen do you want to weigh in on the implications for US Russia no only then if you put two academics even as diametrically opposed in their experiences and views as professor McFaul and I are you might actually stumble on full agreement okay I just point out as a footnote though what really in terms of interpretation of history divides professor McFaul and myself about the Cold War and how it ended is that he wants to emphasize the role of people Democrats with little days and I would like to and by the way I have this argument with my wife Katrina vanden Heuvel editor of a nation because she's probably closer to McFaul than I am but the record really does show and this is not a great man theory that if the Gorbachev hadn't opened the door then it might still have been closed today I mean it's just the historical record and that the people entered the stage because goodbye chav opened up the stage and then the people came I remember our mutual friend grigory yavlinsky saying to me you know a lot of Russians run around claiming now we carried out a revolution and we did this drink ready strike and we reached out and we seized our freedom that's the way you've Lensky claimed people were saying but he said Steve I mean come on we all know Gorbachev gave us our freedom we may have screwed it up but Gorbachev gave it to us I hate that part of history is well recorded now and about this kinds of things how these things happen and don't happen probably we could have another debate with plenty of evidence on your side and I'd like to thank considerable on mine as well so yeah hold on one second so we're just we're right at the end now and we had promised that both of the speaker's a closing statement professor Coe and that kind of sounded like a closing statement do you want to take that as your closing statement or do you want to add more to that I just add one note and it's meant to actually a complement of the Michael but he might not take it that way I've known Michael a long time than ever never will geography politics but I've always really liked him as much as I disagreed with him I mean he is a decent and affable civil man with no cynicism in myself he believes what he says alas so I leave him with I'm taking that as a compliment Thank You professor Cohen you believe what you say - by the way the winds of change but you do not change and I will decide later whether that was a cat but I will leave you with this thought the word tragedy appears in your book yeah and many things you said and I think it is a tragedy what's happened to American Russian relations we agree about that I just remind you though of the classic Greek tragic lesson which was the tragic flaw lies within us I'm not so sure it's in Russia okay okay closing statements so let me make one analytic point and then just close on on something a little more personal so on the analytic point if you buy the book you'll note you'll see you better buy the book after all this work that we've been doing and by professor Cohen's book two is which is out there you you will see that on this analytic argument that we're talking about do do people matter can't do individuals matter in the making of history I we actually agree on that I agree that that without Gorbachev though cold war does not end i I consider him to be a heroic figure of the 20th century that should get more attention I used to go see Mikado Sergeyevich when I was ambassador all the time because I thought that I was with and living and and being with a great man who had the courage to think differently despite all the constraints on him I also think that about Ronald Reagan however I want to I want to mention that because Ronald Reagan also had a different view and I'm no supporter of the Republicans actually have a voted for one Republican once and that was my good friend his name's Pat chin and only because I knew he was gonna be crushed in the election so I could always see him every day and say hey I vote a free pat too bad but but Ronald Reagan also had that vision and those two gentlemen and was shevardnadze and and my colleague at Stanford George Shultz I do think that at a moment in history they they did seize the moment and turned both of our countries in our relationship in a positive direction but I also think that other individuals also matter and a pivot I talked about this in my book it's an accident of history that Vladimir Putin became president there was no massive demand for Vladimir Putin nobody knew who he was in August 1999 he didn't have an approval rating or not literally less than 10% of Russians knew who he was only became prime minister he's put chosen by Yeltsin and then the the Machine got behind him he made him interim president and then he was elected think of the counterfactual I think that that choice had some very negative consequences for the future of Russian democracy and then by the future of our bilateral relations as I've talked about we won't go that now but think of the counterfactual because their chosen successor as I write about in the book was not was not Vladimir Putin it's actually Boris time so he was chosen early on look watch the video you don't have to believe me you can hear Boris Yeltsin to say it in his own words he was the one charismatic leader from Nietzsche and over had won elections in the middle of that economic depression that we agree was three times as worse as our economic depression he won re-election he was Jewish by the way anyone reelection in evening overgrip he he was a friend of mine so I do get a little passionate about him but he was the chosen when he became First Deputy Prime Minister and then an exogenous shock unplanned exogenous shock August 1998 happened the economy collapses and he has to be that government is with front drawn I believe it's only a counterfactual I can't prove it of course but had that crisis not happening and Neversoft was the anointed one our relations would be different so here I just want to say I also think people matter I think it's it's too simplistic to say one or the other but I I want to looking for agreement and on this we agree we may not agree about the counterfactual but I do think individuals matter that's a big part of my story last thing I just want to say we have known each other for a long time I do respect your opinions I deeply respect your scholarship and we don't always agree you're right about that but you're one of the people that I feel like I need to read so I can think about alternative arguments and and I want people to come away from this to get out of your comfort zone to stop just thinking in your bubble to watch Fox News now every now and then I do just to mix it up a little bit to interact with somebody that you don't normally interact with because when you do that hey you might learn something I think it's important to interact with people with different views and different scholarship and be you might even you know begin to reevaluate some of the assumptions that you've made before you played that role for me professor Cohen I thank you for that and I thank you that you guys did this today so on behalf of NYU of the Herman Institute Josh myself our two distinguished speakers thank you for being here copies of the book are downstairs for sale ambassador McFaul will be here to sign them ambassador Cohen will also be here for some informal conversation and hope to see you soon thank you [Applause]
Info
Channel: The Harriman Institute at Columbia University
Views: 40,388
Rating: 4.7619047 out of 5
Keywords: Russia, Putin, Cold War, Ukraine, NATO, Crimea, Georgia, US-Russia Relations, McFaul, Stephen Cohen
Id: Z4dJcdM2Dkg
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 111min 15sec (6675 seconds)
Published: Tue May 15 2018
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