Why did we get the collapse of the USSR so wrong?

okay well today - you wanna see the except you said hey and you would like them still still the headless rotating in defense that each other and it's a very pleasure this evening to welcome you all here this and you probably chair and who introduced while printing and coal again and a predecessor in a mister taking the aesthetic Center professor Paul um of course it a kind of a cliche both of these one of those people who don't need any introduction most people in Australia and most people under about my hands I guess when I think of Paul do they think that Australian Defence policy and there's a reason for that if you look at the culture Paul has had in the last 25 years through professor emeritus at resilient Study Center deputy secretary strategy and intelligence director of Defense Intelligence Organisation principal for the 1987 white paper and the author of the deep review which does get us back 25 years or has been absolutely at the center of a long series of the facts about the way in which Australia thinks about the thing suppose you only think about and of course the way we look at the kinds of animals that we need to achieve our strategic objectives in this country and in that capacity I itch simply true to say that Paul has made as a bigger contribution I think I hopefully have big for the language of pragmatics about defense policy then if anyone in the history of of the Commonwealth which house interesting back ten years it's a remarkable set of achievements long before he got interested in Australian Defence policy Falls reload his first love intellectually I may say and his great contribution was as an expert on the Soviet Union and as a practitioner and not of the business of policy for the business of intelligence assessment well several decades before was absolutely at the forefront of intelligence assessment in this country it was at a very young age he became the head of the National Assessment staff which was intended me to end on a kind of predecessor of ona and played a very leading role in the assessments that Australia Australian government made and had available to it on Australia's evolving international strategic environment and within that business he had a particular focus on on the Soviet Union and in that capacity he became a very significant figure in the global industry of assessing the Soviet Union which was of course during the Cold War a really really big industry and very important industry indeed and it's um been I think one of his pleasures over the last few years and one of my cleat is like a pleasure for many other friends to see him over the last few years go back to Russia I mean literally physically but also so to speak and literally to re-explore some of those questions that we worked on in at the time of the Soviet Union and to come back as he will with us tonight to the fascinating question which brings together is interested in the intelligence business and interests in the Soviet Union that is why did we get it wrong but being Paul of course I'm sure he won't just dwell in the past we will also bring this story up today to ask what we can learn about the very questions we face today by looking back at the story of the Soviet Union and held we saw what was happening there in the years I've got to collapse just over 20 years ago so Paul speaking about 20 minutes 40 minutes rather and then we'll have some time for Q&A and wrap things up by 7 o'clock thanks to Garth and the team for putting this together very flesh a very fitting backdrop for your for your observations Paul Flores thank you your most generous and our friendship has a very long way q if I might incentive public breakfasts that opportunity to thank you for your last you know has seven years as head of the strategic defense service center of the enormous effort instilling wood and proton to the center the center as you know has changed out of sight in terms of the size of our masters and PhD programs and our undergraduate teaching and not least the contract with one must approve so thank you again I know we'll have better attendance to do this over the or through the Corps to Scioscia says might my career basically both academically this is the third time I've been issued as the stand-off in 1968 another research school science departments up professor Harry Rigby who was these solid expert in Australia and who CIA ranked in the top seven lieutenant before and we forget at that time we had it this university in these research there was some of the leading experts so half of my life was on the Soviet Union and when the huge Boston mind that one that Defense Minister Kim Beazley rang me up in late 1984 set up I've got a serious problem in the Department of Defense they can today would you come as ministerial consultants that could really review the Australian Defence Force militia capabilities and I must say before I thought about it they've all said yes but the thought did cross my mind this Minister is asking me to stop w a country the Soviet Union with 12,000 achievement award s 200 division was fifty thousand times five thousand a combat aircraft 287 reason three hundred surface combatants because for seventy two thousand six battalions 180 they some rate but yes we we did it and we changed our career at home virtuousness leave 1985 just before the Soviet Union man did it collapse I answered it this evening I'm going to focus more on trends and events it is not part of my purpose here is even to criticize those both in intelligence and academia most the Soviet apologists ornithologist team we've got the actual color it is always difficult to predict events but my more serious purpose is to be critical of those here and most especially in the United States who didn't get the trench like who could not see as early as I did in the late 70s and early 80s there was something very seriously wrong and there were weaknesses which I must say I didn't see as faithful but in which when I wrote the book that you commented on for the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London I call it the Soviet Union the incomplete suit the path and that very title got into sathya trouble with the American intelligence community and I think you some sense that just how dangerous it was at the time to study the Soviet Union was forbidden fruit and the enormous pressures some of which were nasty personal pressures on me with regard to not conforming to the conventional wisdom certain elements of the Australian intelligence community at the time I promoted you of very briefly of just how strong militarily this on I mean this was a country that for the first time in America's history was capable of like in the United States now from 24 hours back the nuclear war targeting on both sides was to reduce the America's Coast Slavic population by 50% about 100 million people named non-casual extremely serious existential threat which frankly a so-called war of terrorism there's no relationship to and we've forgotten that I think we have a generation who naturally were not brought up in this period as ambassador you and I were every day of our lives in the sixties and seventies and in teenagers and it's fashionable today to say oh it was quite a stable period the suburbs and Americans understood the rules of the game but I'm going to give you some case studies where that was not the case but never mind the Cuban Missile Crisis which was frankly not all that serious because the Soviets have very limited it is the most serious event will be teated on the area of global nuclear war it was 1983 and I've come back to them and I start with a couple of quotes from Henry Kissinger the reward oh and George Kennan the American who develop a policy of containment of the Soviet in kissing his book diplomacy in 1994 he said and I quote at one moment at the beginning of the 1980s it was as if communist momentum might sweep all before it and at the next moment to history measures time communism was self-destructive and what he meant that there was that the amount of defects in the Vietnam War 75 the Soviets took advantage of it the invaded Afghanistan with a hundred and twenty thousand troops in 1978 late 78 and were there for 10 years and was they admit to 15,000 dead the real figures at war like 25,000 casualties and that the Soviet Union was taking advantage of American weakness of perceptions of American defeated Vietnam I record only too well the Soviets had a biggest naval base outside of the Warsaw Pact in Burgos Somalia and I never went there but I could have walked you through it a success its have a signals intelligence station the missile handling facility airfields for departments and capabilities for those suburbs serve issues and people remember how Malcolm Fraser that these days well the center that person was extremely right-wing when he was Prime Minister we had the scare that the Soviet naval presence in the Indian Ocean View I mean the fact he was 3,000 nautical miles away via was not in perspective and of course the Soviets were helping the Cubans to go to anger transporting human shruti to our goal of all this we've again we have master students now some of whom may well be here or in their twenties who said to me when I give them a talk on the fourth stop you professor Dave is there a good book on that Soviet Union place and that kind of more thing well yeah I've got several hundred and you know it makes you feel like Methuselah Kissinger also said and I quote no world power has ever disintegrated so totally or so rapidly without losing a war and I want you to pause on that so I want to take you through the question why was there knocked out again why didn't the Soviet military and KGB unleash the dogs of war final quote is George Kennan I mentioned him and he says he found it my quote hard to think of any event more strange of startling than the sudden and total disintegration and disappearance of the great power known as a sovereign Union so these are Titanic events we're talking about although I from the late seventies and then in this university wrote of all they've got in America the incomplete superpower not that I reread it but I recall a little well I knew that I was saved things that would not be improved I was lucky that's an Australian father kneel upon the head of this strategic defence of his center was the head of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and one and he put the forward in my book and having published it even though a lot of his funding came from the other side of the Atlantic but don't get me wrong despite the gracious remarks of Hugh I wasn't good enough to see that result even he might suddenly collapse all I was saying was it had tremendous may be faithful weaknesses as a nature power and wouldn't make it as an in Japan so we do need to ask in this period under God the cha third is perestroika and glasnost why was it that the Soviet elite that is the party in the Politburo the KGB and the Armed Forces which number numbered five million failed to defend the Soviet study and as I've suggested equally wide English see an all-encompassing conflagration even more even a lashing out to the West they want final spasm it's a great mystery still in many ways you've heard from you q my experience in the Cold War I first went to the Soviet in 1968 right across Siberia I was writing a book at that place and then as an intelligence officer head of the National Assessments staff the Secretary of the Department of Defense the famous meandering throughout the ten has said to me people I wanted to go to the Soviet Union in your role as head of the National Assessments now go tell the Soviet embassy very well do I want an Australian view at the side you going to stay with that ambassador you're not allowed to stay in a hotel you might get grabbed and he was a very young very nice man in many ways that he will be interesting weather secretaries of departments these days would have that courage to think now sighs to go quite regularly and have discussions with them about their strategic intent muscles and that was apparent the Indian Ocean at the difference between humor subsonic or supersonic cruise missile might be measured in terms of arms control the song I came here and wrote the book in the early 80s and then you know the rest of the story after I went for Kim Beazley I was appointed as director of what is now the Defense Intelligence Organisation and I'll come back to them and I went to CIA headquarters where I've even at times before to talk to what Robert Gates who had been the national intelligence officer the result Union Russian linguist and was deputy director of the CIA I'll never forget he said to be former principal this incompletion of the pathing it was badly wrong this is 1980 late 86 I think maybe year later so badly well we in the agency we in the agency are of the view that the Soviet Union is poised to outstrip the United States in military power 86 87 89 down comes the Berlin Wall Christmas Eve 1991 I can sing the Beatles song back in the USSR there's one other personal anecdote to who knows that in public I've it's not my habits either in writing or speaking to talk about personal issues but this one it's about titles in the public domain before basically appointed me in late 84 I just finished the book I was polishing it to send it off to the double life SS and the position of Director of the what is now the defense intelligence organization became vacant so I thought I'd be the deputy director after the National system of staff was taken over by women and you will remember these people who interviewed me on the cloud deputy said she later became Commonwealth Ombudsman Nathan Allen chief of the Air Force would later became vice chief have been principal of the senior college at West symmetry and a public service representative and sometimes you know when you're interviewed for a job you know you've done it really well and so I was waiting for the phone call and the phone call came from a civilian Co Secretary of the Department of Defense or the secretary of the Treasury former chairman of the public service come up and see me so I would have to see he said well you've applied for this job and I guess you have a strong feeling that your body very well he said well you are the unanimous choice of the selection committee however the director general of the Office of National Assessment 1 Michael Cole will not accept you because of the four months later I am the senior ministerial consultant with all this huge power to be was carefully to review of these growing military capabilities I'm going to see Sir William Cohen when he says to me well for this is a turn-up for the books and I thought is some of the Empire's going to strike their end of bezel stories I want to talk and I've done this before for some of you like this and others here including Clive Williams we'll just go to state while I have repeat this this will talk very briefly about the theory of the rise and fall of great powers and this is the Soviet model because it doesn't fit Igbo Paul Kennedy the rise and fall of the great powers seminal work still rather than their stresses throughout his work the key role of economic power of that big economics strong it in the manpower you don't make it is directly but is the Roman Empire the Dutch the French the Spanish that rose the Americas and of course has an enormous truth in there there's always an exception and you can't say the sonic meaning had a big successful economy it was big but it was unsuccessful in many ways other than its military power my impression it was a third-world country in terms of service for supplies infrastructure and poverty you name it it is of course an interesting question whether it was Soviet witnesses that have to bring it down and look they're back to back Niall Ferguson who many of you know argues that one of the key explanatory variables but for the rise and fall of Great Powers is what he calls fiscal crises and huge panic there's something that the European Union is facing right now not sweet he quotes Imperial France has happened a public debt of 62 percent of GDP a Spanish Empire of having a fiscal debt of 1% he doesn't quote the USSR and that's have a figure for their fiscal debt but I will tell you what their budget deficit was it was never even towards that very final year more than 9% so it was nothing in critical dire straits the economy you will read is it was stagnating well it was actually slowing down remarkably quickly growth rates in the last five years I went to 1989 was 1.9 percent a Meatwad was professor of law at Yale Law School in her book about and talks about the role of intolerance the torrent societies including the early Roman Empire indeed she would I be British mom were very tolerant societies and as they became intolerant the pressures of disintegration of the Empire occurred there's this loose I suggested issue they're willing to ponder on and that is the immorality and the legitimacy of the Soviet regime and got the truth in his final years talked about not you didn't want to dismantle the Soviet than the stage of the Communist Party he he called it he wanted a more moral yo sir sir there's a procession tomorrow USSR and I'll just give you a couple of other quotes which I come across bill the chose Prime Minister nicolayevitch cough that talked about and it's a very telling quote we start from ourselves took and gave bribes lied in the reports in newspapers from high volumes wallow in our lives and medals on one another and all of this from top to bottom and from bottom to top Edward Sheldon NC good shots foreign minister a long-serving member of the Politburo recalls telling Gorbachev in the winter of 1984 85 night quote everything is wrong which has to be changed so I think there's an issue there whether we call it intolerance or simple moral decay it was certainly an issue very much on go that you're smart you won't mind you were very briefly let me say what I think did not cause the collapse of being versatile its fashionable in American circles to crow about it you know we're Americans forced the sophoclean into an arms race and we broke their back well it is true that as far as we can calculate it the Soviet Union was spending at least 20% of GDP maybe more on military and more importantly the best scientific engineering brains were in the military establishment special shots special food special announcement and you need to remember that in the Soviet period as long as you've learned some political dissidence the education system is exceptionally rigorous not least to the fire Sciences chemistry physics engine and when you look at some of the weapons systems not these ones that they invented their architectural design was different from Western weapon systems whether it was the heaviness of the ICBMs right the SS 18 the design of very large sudden leaves much bigger than the American ones or even the development ahead of the Americans of supersonic sea skinny missiles they were highly innovative it's a question for people so I don't accept the arms race bro I think it was a burden but it didn't break the back a second would be other fanciful bonnet I'm sure your footage is that Afghanistan bro as long as it's truly a let me say the fortieth Russian army Soviet Army was in there for ten years just like just over there 19 years you know brass said a hundred and twenty thousand troops for ten years not in and out and then to deliver the tailing you heard the fatality as I mentioned you didn't break the back of the Russian economy it is truly caused a lot of dissent amongst the National Service compulsory evidence in the military you've got to remember the Soviet military was a fool physically offensive but the fact is until the mountains through the CIA or the Stinger missiles in to rip down the very good solid the Russians so I don't accept that one either I turn now to my explanations and these are very challenged as well as indeed this assault even it is why the methodology and epistemology of the particularly American intelligence and academic community of Soviet ologists got it wrong remember I'm not talking about the events of the last couple of years I'm talking about detecting the trendline well before things bad in the soviet and you but remember and these are figures off the top of my head but i think there were over two hundred thousand people in the united states does that mean wasabi in the full time the whole of the National Security Agency if you try to get a discussion in the CIA in Australia or India or Indonesia or tell us what the Soviet embassy in Australia's do it for added try to establish an embassy in harmony or access to fishing ports and using hydrographic and his spy so no spit under the finger top of the head and of course of academics and certain universities in the United States were heavily subsidized one way or the other indeed when I wrote the book record with Harry Rigby in the late sixties here on the economic development of Siberia very sexy stuff you that money came from the Ford Foundation and we can guess what it starts with so you've had this huge community so what were the issues and again something like this not seeing the port for the trees but within academia and in industry including here experts studied more and more about less and less and look when you've got 89 target like the song which had little in the way of transparency there were forbidden cities you've got to travel to I never took a camera to the Soviet Union because you couldn't photograph beatnik uniform railway viaduct straight lines government offices road overpasses you name it people to photograph it and there was the course was extremely high so it was it don't get me wrong but very difficult targets at penetrate and particularly the military target and so you had to get into a lot of detail the first time I went to CIA and I said at the National Assessment stuff I read before this is the service I go to the agency of they were briefed by and I can't do teach self excerpts without right and this CIA character said to me sir I'm a going to brief you on the Soviet ss-18 intercontinental ballistic missile mark 2 with 10 independently targeted we actually hit or suck and he knew about every rhythms we look to be from the other heads satellites the silos and the refueling and the war has been separate regarded by the case so but he knew better all about submarine ballistic missiles and asking about tanks or something not his scene and I have to say when I kept current intelligence crises on my hands in the 70s and you know I could ring up an expert Akina who was an expert on the Politburo over the Communist Party but them you nothing about the Soviet military I could have the expert on the Soviet military people tell me about the economy I could bring the expert up on sovereign agriculture but he couldn't tell me about their interest rate and that was the case in both academia and intelligence and especially in the United States but to a significant extent here you had to drill down to be noticed the danger was there's little in the way of overarching views that the word academics in the u.s. like professor Vienna from Mercer in Vienna from Columbia who chanced is armed with more overarching ports the second one is you know the family one of mirror imaging you know the Soviets are going to be just like us they will react to international crises like us why you know why don't they understand more that I think it was read it was said just before record it in 86 none of Muslims in 83 with the nuclear Wars get ready to stare down and I've just been reading rereading it in one of these two books are Italian bread from 786 point in the Soviet City we're going to check them with the premium a nuclear strike we Americans are so evolved yes right there is this is a familiar theme for those of us who come from anglo-saxon countries and don't get me wrong at that I don't mean back today a racial by me come she's like Britain Australia New Zealand and in many ways to a significant extent the amount of states of intersection origin have no common land borders and they don't understand countries that have been invariably crossed common meant borders and I ain't going to tell me that America has a border with Canada who cares and only basic that who cares I think it's very different I think is very different when you have a continent well let me give you another example that is channels as you know the Baltic republics that have separate countries and NATO they're all members of NATO if you take the most northern one Estonia it has NATO f-16 fighters there the distance from that fighter base to st. Petersburg is the distance from Earth to Canberra and I can tell you as a former defense president if we have intermission fighters in Kerrville it will focus much because we're not used to situations so the mirror imaging the third one is was technological obsession particularly in the United States particularly in intelligence community they had very impressive satellite photography intercept and other capabilities that we were highly privy to not least to not be careful what I say because the joint American Australian intelligence collection facilities in the center of Australia were almost the most powerful in the world central to early warning for America of they lived off the ICBM Zeus I believe it or from that many wars positiveness was to give the Americans about 20 minutes boarding time and I was centrally involved in those facilities when we went to America to discuss those facilities we would see the director CIA director dia director of NSA the deputy director of defense to their Deputy Secretary of State this was long before the days of Osman is one of the days we are seeing it intelligence officers and public servants read the policy I mentioned it not you know to beat up my own position but to just show you the enormous influence behind and how crucial we were to the American what we thought nuclear deterrence of the United States don't ever stop the Technol but not the technical of sessions were taken to extremes in which you know I will be terrifying record colleagues that a particular solid submarine the Akula which is a titanium 40 not submerged submarine that the Americans equipment Tracy we were told that the t-72 tank was so strong in its lair diameter no nato antics a missile penetrated rubbish we were told that you might even call this in the fancy products that no intelligence publicly produced that was Soviets were development charged particle beam weapon a x-ray device into space that would bring down our CBO's what we still ain't offended we still haven't found it it was central technological obsession and for reasons you would understand and I'm not pretty blower little in the way of human intelligence operatives penetrating the Soviet Union I waited in vain to see you know the coded message from the American spy in the Politburo never sorta never saw anything like not there was there was also fourthly to be more fair viewers of Soviet strengths that I mentioned out of kissing her in the late seventies and early eighties where it looked as though to use they their Soviet expression that the correlation of world forces was moving in favor of the sodomy the defeat of America in Vietnam Russia's movement into Afghanistan with no reaction from voice Russia's buildup in the Indian Ocean and indeed the North Pacific and you remember Angola and of course the territory and with the iron fist over Eastern Europe there was a real impression that the correlation that moved decisively in favor Soviet military strength and finally it was is the one that for me was most oppressive and that was conforming with the conventional wisdom you haven't said my chances of being productive because somebody in a very senior position they couldn't stand my views of the sovereignty they put further than that limitations the very fact you visited there even though it was with official endorsement isn't it the intelligence officer thought about all sorts of suspicious I think in the academic world certainly in Australia that was not that sort of pressure but those pressure and there's also the truth that the pressure and professional group feel that you know we had such imperfect knowledge remember how difficult a terrible it was and how they want be a lone figure and snow you know salt that have come to an end and of course all of us did certainly in the intelligence communities there was enormous it's threatening pressure to conform and then a move on now just very briefly talk about two case studies of the dangers of American West calculations of the Soviet threat the first one who recalls 1983 in the Soviet nuclear war the second is 1986 and regularly and there's a book here which I commend him called the dead hand by David Hoffman journalist in the Washington Post as positive to Moscow in the late eighties early nineties it is a brilliant border with access to that leave and I don't remember seeing and you know thought of the art class working very good in the immediate fall of the Soviet Union but not now well so let's just quickly talk 83 remember said much more serious than Cuba it starts off in an early 83 with the brawl over into these French nuclear missiles the Soviets for some years have been deployed very threatening ss-20 intermediate range nuclear missiles not strategic but from bases in western Russia were capable of taking out London house so these were not short ventures we had multiple warheads were very accurate the Americans responded by developing the flourishing - which was a mark 8 and picking under five thousand miles an hour of something supersonic Christmas or its morning time from bases in West Germany to the Soviet leadership was between four or six minutes there was a deity a decapitate in strike no service obviously I'm not in this discussion of 83 I'm not excusing the Soviets we're all in nasty regime those are very threatening nuclear capabilities against you DSS 20 zlotys what I didn't know until I learnt it from this book I've not seen it contradicted some things but that says wrong he's telling the American secretary of Navy John layman was decided that the soldiers need to be taught just how powerful American naval power so in spring of 83 northern hemisphere spring they deployed three aircraft carriers as the coastal can check them one of those and they were practicing you know operations are trying to trigger off by getting so close to the Soviet borders that we have triggered off the Soviet radars and intercepts and then you can actually thank you that's brilliant we've now got a radar signature and we know what transmission you're using further into says he then detects the Midway aircraft carrier it went on to electronics understand the Russians sockets lost it and then allegedly unauthorized through four F four teams of the open area and penetrators Soviet territory in the coral islands that's Walton a Korean airliner left the United States Klaas 0:07 the great numbers over this navigation system with building technique is in the road those days in serious error if flight mechanic there had been an incident which I could not to mention earlier on with the German pilot who for the light aircraft and landed in Red Square and I forgot his name but that is another issue and of course you mentioned the soleus one was severe instructions don't ever let back half of the game put into mention of the outcry what is not in this book and what I remember as an intelligence officer Roenick said well that was 1983 1978 I recall a Korean airline of these London for so going over the North Augusta it comes back down over the Soviet territory between Finland and firing base something was little fireplaces seventies masala fighter said ordered playing down and blended I'm not saying until connected but if you were sorry so what this was going on and drop off the former head of the KGB was general secretary of the party an obsessive man hated that West believe the West was developing a decapitated disarmament first tragedy ever taken leadership a diversion to I'm sorry he ordered the KGB rezident residence in London and Washington to go on high alert to detect tell tales of shorten warning time for nuclear attack when all this was going on without talking on the telephone just after the events with between their NATO launches a huge military exercise they could make they've done before corporate exercise in April Archer which goes all the way up to the lease of simulator commercial nuclear weapons it has solid conventional strike across the foot gap and the use of tactical event and crop up goes right off the edge and believes it's about this had been a lead-free I learned about it since to retro Defense Intelligence in 1987 with the just retired to rep truth because Intelligence Agency and the serving CIA national intelligence officer that was served here John Paul says the Thompson says they all about 180 frames other times what the first morning we wouldn't get the compliment of nuclear war would have been to dropped on their wealth refined yet remember when I was 10 it was our fuse that we might be we served as Malcolm Fraser in the late seventies they in a final specimen nuclear exchange most likely Sydney and maybe another citizen would behave because we were so close to the Americans and the Soviets knew from traitors in the American establishment of TRW who would reveal a part of the secrets of the operations of I kept so many more down I was told by these two Americans in when I think of 1988 that one of the other tell tales was that the group of Soviet forces East Germany Sukhoi 15 or 16 were for the first time moving tactical nuclear weapons onboard the aircraft and ready to go with moment's notice so when anybody tells me Cuba was is if you'll forgive my usident well-known epidemic expression absolutely Oksana she danced at the CIA history site and you can read about it you can read Robert Gates this book from the shadows and I saw six presidents and you see he's got a chapter 1983 Patricia 1986 three years later rid of it by now unlike 83 Robert Chavez been in power since my champion bomb to be fair when a funder clients defero president Bregman was questioning mutual assured destruction use of nuclear weapons and as you well know he's struck on the idea with help from people like Richard Perle and Richard pipes the idea of Star Wars listing mystery the Russians took him seriously it might be far too seriously but they knew that American technology it was better than theirs and again as their economy smokeable was so and my great friend and colleague Jeffrey that unfortunately is not here tonight he was with the Australian Australian journalist at Reykjavik and he can tell you what happened it's written I think this book two chapters so Reagan and Gorbachev negotiating this was got the chops proposal face one this is 1986 by 1991 94 cuts all strategic Arsenal's by 50% take her from 12 thousand six he stood at one place - between 1995 1997 continued reductions and eliminates all technical nuclear weapons I still gotta clear the salt when you may have 30,000 tactical nuclear bombers phase three by the year 2000 says Gorbachev but get rid of four nuclear weapons and we know he was there thinking about this because general Hawk Ramaiya fishy for Genesis earth Rendon was very tempted until one Richard Perle the Prince of Darkness was spitting easier instead and there was one story point not the 50% not eventually the other stolen point was Robert Jeff had written into the draft treaty began to star wars the Americans would keep it at the laboratory level would not testify at Reagan asked the advice of Richard Richard Cosette has simply not accepted my friend Jeffrey Barca said he was there when George Shultz came out of his heroin long overlap Peters definitely white looked at the circle Gervais acknowledged every bar and said we've got so close the phone you know you could have asked yourself it was natural to people like Robert Gates and others were very suspicious of their job but then mysteriously think about we will repeat nuclear weapons if this has been cemented is that there's no guarantee would be very happy and where is for the stick missile defense oh my no maybe you can bring down two or three so there we are that's my story about ok there's another book that I compared on YouTube by Stephen Hawking he is a professor of modern history at Princeton called Armageddon a thirty radius not really it's not like those languages it's really good really yes a very good question you know why was it that literally didn't press the balance my share to the place why was it if it wasn't a military uprising internally or there was a vote was 91 but he was pathetic you sir if you look at the videos that it was hem fisted and not traditional form I sometimes ask myself these counterfactuals you know what would have happened if the military coup in August 19 one headed by military and play TV people as it was succeeded I ask myself what would have happened if and drop off the develop market and Gorbachev only maybe this you know polity remember my personal view is that we still going pound Armageddon was adverting and what sort of bloodshed able to evolve both internally and potentially out stone it's a counterfactual with Bastian I guess more seriously my personal view is that rather than the sudden collapse they've got the trough that have not unleashed the powers that he didn't understand the Soviet Union could have gone into a long drawn-out decline that's just as rational and explanation as the southern coast or my friend bill Odom who was head of the National Security Agency a fluent Russian linguist the new who before he died not a magnificent four year University for the collapse of the Soviet military mr.thang testable he said in the book the Southern Union could have gone for years it's not their place in so I think these are issues that you know certainly is myself and they report I could go on longer but I whether I just want to very briefly and let me stress those of you who want to ask me questions about current Russia I am NOT across it in the way I used to be most of my working there's a special miss reading defense policy these days what about Russia 20 years on you know today is the 7th of November hands up those who understand the importance of that day to the Russian character exactly yes today is the 94th anniversary of the great October Revolution Wilde said that they lose the Jew in Canada which is thirteen days behind on Christmas Day still so it was just by chance that we would gather organized today type of this so 20 years on this December what what has happened is it better with it worse you know when the Soviet Union collapsed was all this outpouring of expectations it would be a democracy paint is that even children later the cosmic desert it is alleged that the Americans on the George W Bush arena sure though the chart that when East Germany was incorporating the West Germany that at the end of the expansion of NATO but it hasn't been NATO is the Baltic republics on the doorstep I do hope that they said doesn't go head and I presume that one with this sitting and dangerous idea that incorporating being crying into later if you want Russia to reach or force do that I'm sorry about if you look at after 20 years where Russian politics and democracy is in comparing which with Indonesia in a much shorter time span since 1998 we have the elements of a blossoming democracy in addition style and freedom of press intuition star information is no indeed not my personal view I suppose stand corrected on this I think there is a deep-seated authoritarian national political revolution and they not yet but mr. SP if I think Russia is a safer place I'm supposed to go there later this month in the Soviet period as long as you work through silly things as an intelligence person you are okay now if you read the wrong restaurant at the wrong time life can be very strong finally this huge foreshadow to contemporary questions about the consequences of the Soviet collapse to geophysical questions or issues the first one is I put it to you that the collapse of the Soviet Union as quick and surprising unpredictable as it was thought about a very considerable dimension of American cuprous that their great enemy of 4550 years did acquire disappearance asleep using our force remember all that talks silly talk Francis Pope your honor this is the end of world history liberal you know capitalist democracy will waive all right now and that will capitalist democracies I'm not saying it's the crisis of capitalism not saying there is an issue of how did we get who would believe 20 years after the end of the couple or existential threat of government people whenever in this situation I think for the Americans they were the nervous of the Russians in it they refused basically it was no marshal plan to the former Soviet Union not at all they wanted to see Russia reduced for all time I know I think many Europeans a few and I understand that if you share comment or as a song but you know it would wreak I think the negative aspects of this they said the very same cowboy extreme economic categories to teach the worst aspects of capitalism about controls I think you know America the world order at the end of history thought it could move into Iraq I would have shot you she did the basis is your her specious basis of weapons of mass destruction so I think there is an issue that they will say were the Americans more disciplined when there's a nasty power like the Soviet Union you must be happy the second one is something that you might not discussed and that is other dangers just like the focus on a straight line extrapolations with regard to the Chinese military effect those of you who came to my previous public lecture two months ago and over I were securing our doubles agreements will believe that China's know when it was Hugh except who says China's got a significant other pass that's true I yet to see real areas of Chinese military innovations to depend very heavily on Russian technology or his mother tree Tara it is true developing cyber warfare and allegedly and to carrier for the stiffnesses but here we have a country China there's never thought about before no forethought the water has no experience of John wolf they're fighting but remember the former Soviet Union had all of that experience we defeat you the greatest on this is all set the state it was general so you know there are these dangers has straight-line extrapolations so I close on too much at the end of the Soviet Union encourage the American Cubist's geopolitically in places like and over abstention economically against fathers it would not have done all those things where the soil lead was rather so the real discipline including about truly being economically you were a viable sustainable state and then this issue of let's not follow up fall into the same dangers as with the fall of sovereignty of straight-line extrapolations and China military threat and he was reminding me coming back to those other points about you know conformity remember the pressures on people like me to conform with the Americas of episodic which we fail and we now see in conformity with regard to the assessment on shine which is it certainly optimistic thank you to study the problems that you're talking about internally in the Soviet Union are you aware of that and if so how did they influence curvatures eventual decision making respected well I think we do like that that cover chop was a cop's personal choice you've got a member when I was tracking that the Cioffi was he grew up in the Northern Caucasus the content area his parents were collective farmers a very committed to the he grew up in the party of the North Caucasus became first secretary of the Northern Caucasus office and he was all agriculture by the way have no experience in parts of Russia hence in my view is an ability to understand what was about to happen Estonia Latvia Lithuania they did you try so look I think that was that situation but you know a drop-off was quickly extremely a very fun the very fact that they chose somebody's young and different when they sing in a fresh net shinyang drop-off in a matter of years senile doctrine you know charge so we shouldn't underestimate and drop us running equipment whether go patch off understood precisely what he was doing with perestroika and glasnost we know he didn't want to see the end of the Soviet state and communism the ruling power that but I think once he started tinker with it and given there was this view of the immorality of the system you know I mean you know there's sort of try quotations you've got in the period during and after the sake of you know chitchat and they pretend to play as we pretend to world the rhyme that they had about the two major newspapers crowded the party paper in his Listia a government paper prat that means the truth is very soon as the news there are new capitals is not truth in the news if you'd asked me that question in 1993 I wouldn't have dared sort of Conformity I think sometimes our American cousins as you know we're the closest allies and okay the United share intelligence but now other countries you know sweeping generalization they ain't good on that the countries and cultures in America is a world complete unto itself isn't it what do you think Cheney wants tell me 60% of American senators did not carry a passport you know it wants to go these funny places like Austria do so I think which in leaa relatively he managed did some blundering things I don't subject to the Pershing to the broader Saudis brought that on south of the SS 20s but remember the three aircraft carrier battle groups you know fly across object and I forgot to mention when that Korean airline was doing his thing the very same day a kc-135 American spy plane was operating over catch a flock very close to the the the Soviet borders kneecap check no excuse for the Saudi to shut down the like of course not but the answer your question is yes thank you very much last person why did we get the collapse of the USSR so wrong because the residue warmth reserved to collapse why I think not two main reasons my view first of all because of the tear and because of the traumatic experiences of the two words war misplaced respect and what you outlined the dakotas was a technical obsession and numbers of some authorities which would you eat out the USSR positive by saying who stood during the first mega right there was no voice given to disciplines there was no voice given to European communities or other communities he found themselves out of use at the heart who were simply ignored as being anti-communist and culturally in the West it was in fact one of the politically correct thing to support the Soviet Union not perhaps in its totality but you know some selective areas there is if anything was shown as positive it was absolutely uploaded by the whole of the West it was you know von Drago to like risk what you saw before city versus I'm not saying that there is that in my country you that the collapse of you as a sound coming from the Airbus was sweeping the ambassador pilot did you see there the people have got the interesting I mean you know other ambassadors can't find as usual and I just want to say to our Friday night I watched this film called cat in okay I commend it to you it is just rocket massacre of 15,000 published officers denounces some of them as should we do it differently I think you know it is a serious concern in this country though we all know the ship dignity of a balance of power to situations that arise of time but there are the other people who know that the figures for people who were learning the national language in Australia schools and universities including Mandarin Japanese and information a declining at explaining quite rapidly and yet in America they're not under study and so I think the issue of I was never very good at managers there's some issue there but I get it when I drink vodka look at the graph but we need to encourage in our part of the world our region that we have experts another language is another culture you know Greek mythology listen to the music I mean unknown to me it was you know at Milan got Tchaikovsky you know it's all starts here getting a Russian ballet unless you get into bed you don't get it under your finger blast you don't snow and it disturbs me frankly we've got these adverse trends not least with language and culture and this university there's four partners we're doing that big but there's the other issue of I know that you know we thought is specialized but the PhDs have to be you know a particular Casper 500 the great lesson I learned from the Salyut was including the academic interviewers we they were all studying more and more that festival s remember they couldn't talk to me if they're an expert on the Politburo that couldn't talk to me about the soil military and the solid military person couldn't talk to me about the time and that gives to frustrate the hell out of me when I had a currently service crisis on my show and I think it did lead to people not wanting to chance that on on the earth June I know you know as a rigorous scholar we've got to be careful not to have you know broad brush not rigorous analysis but I think certainly on the China issue I want to see more academics and big brothers telling me what are the weaknesses of China as well as the steps don't tell me everything is perfect it's going to grow forever that it's you know the military power will be you know that this stuff you know we need more challenges and we should encourage our students to not conform it's not a great offensive its best ever I recall call that you got enormously frustrated over the delays we've publishing your book I think in a sudden you've delayed something like 18 months yes that due to incompetence on the part of the publisher or was there something happening behind the scenes question that I don't even with my glass here with the world and suspicions concerns we forget in this instance self-publishing at age let you know already I mean I wrote that thought in the Koons building was I have two desks I'm a very active person I've say to my research assistant chapter one whatever subjects you bring the books and the journals and song of one destined hideout okay don't think that something would type it up then we take all that away we do have chapter ten all of which can be met who is not a tiny business reduce living so the business of printing out and they're going to gallop through store coming back the Macmillan's press who were publishing for the double leg of this challenge decidedly basalt Union being complacent which I was a great section childhood but they want to call it the limits to solve it down and I was there that point out there were lots of other books about the lilies to you know things so I just think that lawns were extremely slow you know British publishing and it's okay CMOS and they they did a slot that blew the cover design was awful they did a limited print run that was published in 86 in 87 they did a briefly then they asked me in 88 to do a second version I'm working for the Kim Beazley Australian Defence policy and all I did was write a couple of pages but I thought the choppy really want a second edition at all but I don't think there was any subterranean plot but I meant it when I said that if father Emil Australian the first and only Australian director of the devil idealistic moment could not be a director would anybody of else unbox have been after my only write a foreword for POTUS today because when you read it now it's a fairly an adult you're not your stick this had some problems but these your headaches a certain people like Robert Gates deputy director of CIA and the director Jo Navarre whose name I don't have out of these sorters you know very threat yeah I was a little company I mean I think now by the way you may have read a piece in the perspective section of the Financial Review on Friday last week about the demographic problems in which a city in Russia which are seriously bowed out for more 47 million or 20 the health system he alleges now is very poor he alleges by don't downtown that the education system is not good it is true that you let me say unless you are a political dissident live sorting this in as long as you kept your nose clean politically the educational system particularly in the hard sciences was first regular which is world class mathematicians engineers scientists I understand that's not the case now what I meant by third-world was I would sit here in the intelligence community and I'd look at these overhead satellite photographs of ss-18 ballistic missiles in some Siberian silo or the latest tank or whatever and you know the American pressure was just look at that that's better than anything they've got which of course was up true and then I'd fly to the Soviet Union I'd go to Singapore and I climb in Aeroflot which ambassador we used to call it October smart very poor engines they still make very cooperative with military NGOs and civil ages that's what the Chinese were called Thank You guards of Moscow and you find queues everywhere for the most simple of products this is in the early eighties I once joined it it was not happy - Jon kiss it was a good way of collecting information what the hell was really going on I thought the party propaganda back you know many of these are salesmen saw you sorting the workers to enjoy dish's I asked John to cure with a full colonel from the tank measurement with a black cat and he said to me in Russian you know man would you hand my place yeah we're mercury NASA's Aqua queuing for he said them but you infer oranges from Algeria and they were they were the equivalents in the early 80s of $30 Australia Michaela I mean only the elite ish people certainly went on you know in the top bracket Butterworth people like him who didn't go to the party shots could have all these things the under curious children joining us for some bananas out of Africa and you go as I did in 68 I was one of the first Australians over to go to the web but Moscow that - nah Vesuvius - academic city I could even gotta go to court on Lake Baikal to Brett's which was the world's biggest fire station and terrace and you know the villages it was 19th century Russia and I have not been to rural Russia into the towns like Scott and Northrop but I'm aiming next year as we develop our relationships that do angry with with Russia just seen just what the life is like in the village areas to me I don't say exactly if they're if they're education and health system have degraded as much as the article I mentioned on Friday as claims then that is to say the least an additional sadness for an a magnificent culture you know you've heard me say Russian poetry Russian literature Russian music Russian ballet I mean is absolutely mechanism but they have had a history that is profoundly sad I mean let me quickly just remind you you know as Russian Christianity was developing gues wearing Kieth whereas they do crime and whether that the little B Cyrillic alphabets be developed we're in Kiev just as that's getting off the ground has started to form principalities and so on the Mongol hordes come across and occupy them for two hundred and fifteen years two hundred and fifty years longer than America's being a nation-state I think that right and you know that high cheekbones but more importantly the the acknowledgement of the not and domination I think talk about habits session of czars from Eve and Grozny Ivan the Terrible through you had been the ambassador's gone occupied by sweeping that the Battle of Poltava 1700 or something where's Paul Talbot Indian crime then you have Napoleon third and Moscow top defeated then you have Hitler it is an extremely sad and poor history you know again I just have to argue with the Office of National Assessments here the figures were the Russians lost twenty million in the same world war rubbish says the Director General that's just solid propaganda world and they'll figure now is twenty nine million dead can you think about that figure kept any of those you know in any major battle in the Second World War the Soviets lost five hundred thousand Trump shows a nasty impressive evil regime but I think if you know you look at the collective history of this country and now you know twenty years on from the great promise where the hell is it not beautiful it's dirty I say that no job massification because of what remains well I mean you know the Tsar of all the Russia's that's what he used talked about this was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century I think that's a very hard question we write the heartland of Russia survives is the huge land parcel in Siberia more than twice as lashes at the deep population of Russia many I've mentioned the demographic problem and he's caused by alcoholism health it is a significantly contracted population down from 147 tour 2007 another and the sense of it varies with the Russian Far East has dropped 2 million from April into 6 and yet it shares a common border with in the northern provinces of China unfortunately if Australia a sparsely populated resource-rich country at a common border with China that sort of population I can tell you what happiness and it will be there's a long-necked ally do I've only written one academic piece since the collapse of the Soviet traps of the system which is accurately because you know the last 20 years I've been to Australia defense policy regional security and I wrote a piece for a moderately right-wing and write journal called the American interest of the National Trust and it was called the berries bed and look I think there is enormous potential if they get their act together they are the world's largest exporter of natural gas and from time to time the largest export of oil we're not prices are fine they do really well that works seven or eight percent because you've met prices there for other vast resources untapped resources in stock really they have been a highly literate educated people with the Purdue education so I say I'm no longer up today is just to weather education systems as bad as the article I mentioned flavors so we shall see but it is a big ass to turn around from where they are now it seems to me laughter take a second use a considerable amount of the blame for this class the Americas not being able to see the same two trees I review I'm wondering since this was a Republican group that was in there and you had some remarks about right-wing views so I'm taking it here more on the liberal side if you ever done a what-if on what would have happened or what would things be like I mean what is the difference in your view of the liberal versus conservative thing that's going on in the u.s. versus you know our public policy or our foreign policy and despite the fact your best ally you're a funny long with Americans I mean like you and I were working in defense if you think we didn't find a challenge what we're getting make sure that what we got was Montevideo we developed it conveys the this very contentious policy of full knowledge and Paris with regard to Iran facilities in other places when the president comes next week that we've announcement the base is going to use of Australian facilities unlike Japan not gonna have bases on vivarium Tara to the reflect line guarded by the richest and we know Australians allowed in but we often say i q-- center centers or sometimes wish to in addition to the quaint form of english that our industry but you actually spoke a foreign language because we would actually put a lot more effort we try to understand that in many ways you are quite doing you know the light on that they'll exceptional society that building fathers the role of religion you know all that stuff it is true share new world big horizons and so i think where text as well yes no we have a very different history on this top horrible country the further England it wasn't the Wild West of California no I haven't done the counterfactual we've mentioned I think it's a very interesting proposition I mean it is true that largely I'm this review no Republican administrations I'd found people like George Shultz very reasonable Kim Beazley but not me fat cap Weinberger very reasonable yeah remember clips it's a far beyond I found people like Richard Perle and I did not find Robert gangs are these people we have differences but I can't you know the factory service Democratic administration says yeah that's something by the way you could do in your country that they matter in this country we've got such service time seeing afford not to do that but I think we might give our students mass of students at the file ever thank you to do it a counterfactual and Elijah proposed very interesting ok therefore thanks very much you've given us a real feast of ideas and have teased out some terrifically interesting points in that in the questions between interesting to hear from our European friends how some of those things feel um from very close up so look I'd like you will join me in thanking Paul for we've really been a terrific

Channel: ANU TV

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Keywords: The, Australian, National, University, Dibb, SDSC, ANU, Asiapacific, IPS, Hedley, USSR, Russia, Soviet, Union, Paul Dibb, Professor Paul Dibb

Id: DiT9G7ScBfc

Length: 85min 28sec (5128 seconds)

Published: Fri Nov 11 2011