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PUTINS RUSSIA: TIME FOR CONTAINMENT?

Paris Dennard: [0:02] Good evening. My name is Paris Dennard. I'm the Events Director here at the McCain Institute. We're so pleased that all of you are here tonight.

[0:08] Do me a favor. If you have an iPhone...There you go. You're already doing it. If you have an iPhone or any type of, uh, cellular device, please put it on vibrate and silence it because we are live on CSPAN tonight, and some other networks, and so we want to be respectful for that.

[0:24] In addition, we want you to participate actively on social media. Let people know where you are. Our hashtag for the, this evening is printed on the back of your program. It's MIDebateRussia. That's M, #MIDebateRussia, and then inside of your program, you can see the, uh, Twitter handles for all of our panelists, our debaters, our moderator.

[0:44] They're all listed right here, so go on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter. Let people know where you are. Now, without further ado, I introduce to you our wonderful Executive Director, Ambassador Kurt Volker.

[0:57] [applause]

Ambassador Kurt Volker: [1:00] Thank you, Paris. It's great to be wonderful.

[1:03] [laughter]

Ambassador Kurt: [1:04] Um, I want to thank all of you for coming out on a rainy evening, uh, and a chilly evening. But I think we have in store for you a very interesting program.

[1:11] Uh, "Putin's Russia, is it time for containment?" That's the question that we want to tee up for this evening's debate. Um, at the McCain Institute, we have a mission to pursue vigorous foreign policy debate about the choices facing our country and try to illuminate those for our public, so that you all can choose what you think about what our country needs to do in the world.

[1:35] Uh, we have a mission of advancing character-driven leadership. That's a core element of the McCain Institute.

[1:40] And it's one that is, uh, pursued by advancing, for example, our next-generation leaders and next-generation leaders program, some of whom are here tonight, uh, which is a way of identifying emerging leaders around the world who have strong character and commitment to values and can bring about change in their own societies.

[1:58] And we support them for a year to help them develop professionally and do more, uh, in the world and what they can do. The McCain Institute is a part of Arizona State University. Uh, you can find us on the web at mccaininstitute.org.

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[2:11] Uh, this event, this evening, as Paris mentioned, is being broadcast on CSPAN. It is being live-webcast. It's being seen by people in Arizona.

[2:19] And there will be an opportunity for the audience to ask questions, so I urge you to, uh, think through what you would like to ask, as well. Hope we make it very interactive. We hope to have a very dynamic program for you this evening.

[2:30] I want to introduce, now, our moderator for this evening's debate. It's a repeat performance for her. She moderated the very first debate that we held, uh, over a year ago, here, in this very auditorium. Uh, Elise Labott from CNN.

[2:43] [applause]

Elise Labott: [2:48] Thanks, Kurt. Thank you, everybody. Thanks for joining us tonight. And what a lively and timely, uh, topic that we have tonight. Who would have thought that, uh, when we scheduled this debate, we would be really in the thick of, um, such a brewing crisis?

[3:07] Under, uh, President Vladimir Putin, Russia has clamped on democracy at home, while exerting influence increasingly abroad. In 2008, we saw Russia invade Georgia. Earlier this year, Russia invaded, occupied, and annexed Crimea, in Ukraine, with barely a shot fired.

[3:25] President Putin did this in the name of protecting Russian-speaking Ukrainians, and he's now encircling eastern Ukraine and appears to be poised to do the same there. In a recent speech to the Duma, the President cited other territories and Russian-speaking peoples that are separated from the Russian homeland.

[3:43] Nobody seems to know exactly what President Putin's ultimate ambitions are. Are they to wreak havoc on his neighbors to make them inattractive to the West as a partner, or are they to create the glory days of the Soviet era with a new Russia?

[3:59] Russia's an oil and driven gas economy with declining demographics and rampant corruption. Yet many in the West, particularly the Europeans, but some here in the United States, acknowledge sanctions against Russia will also hurt world markets, with President Putin able to enact sufficient economic revenge.

[4:16] We must also keep in mind that the US and its allies also need Russian cooperation on many key international issues and crises, from the civil war in Syria to curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions to international arms control.

[4:30] So, how do we manage this crisis and deal with President Putin? Is his Russia on the wrong side of history, a weak power that will eventually succumb to the greater forces of the 21st century, or is Putin making history, to continue to do so unless he is stopped?

[4:49] Is it time, again, to contain Russia? And that's our topic for tonight. Uh, my moderate, my debaters tonight know so much about this topic. Really, some of the foremost thinkers on Russia and Ukraine and eastern Europe.

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[5:04] Anders Aslund has been Senior Fellow at the Peterson Institute for Econ...International Economics since 2006. He has also worked as an economic adviser to Russian, Ukrainian, and other transition governments and the author of 13 books.

[5:19] David Kramer is President of Freedom House, which he joined in 2010. Prior to joining that, he was Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund and also was served as Assistant Secretary of States for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor. They'll be what we'll call the containers for the evening.

[5:37] [laughter]

Elise: [5:39] Those who feel, let's call them the engagers, feel that we need to uh, really have a more uh engaging policy towards Russia. Thomas Graham is a managing editor at Kissinger Associates where he focuses on Russia and Eurasian Affairs, and uh was also Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russia on the National Security and also serving, um, on the NSC as Director for Russian Affairs.

[6:08] And Andrew Weiss is Vice President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace where he oversees research in Washington and Moscow on Russia and Eurasia since June, 2013. Prior to joining Carnegie he was Director of the Rand Corporation Center for Russia and Eurasia, and has also been on the United, on the National Security Council staff dealing with Russia, Ukraine and Eurasian affairs. So clearly a lot of knowledge here, um, on the stage tonight. Um, each side will have a five minute presentation on their argument.

[6:43] Then each side will have a three minute rebuttal. Then I'm going to ask some questions and then we're going to open it up to you. We're going to keep to a very strict time, so that they have concise and cogent arguments. Um, and hopefully we'll be able to really get um, a very um, engaging and, and lively discussion, and a lot of food for thought as we deal with this important crisis. So um, Anders, I'll think you'll kick us off? Or David you'll kick us off?

David: [7:09] Yes, Elise thanks very much. Kurt, thanks to you and the McCain Institute for holding this timely event, for inviting me to be part of this panel with, uh, people I've known for a long time and respect very much. I was in Kiev last week, and had an opportunity to go down to the Maidan and to see what is still an unbelievable and moving sight. Barricades and barriers still there, tents still set up, people still sleeping there overnight. But also the memorials to the many people who tragically lost their lives, shot down by snipers.

[7:42] It was a reminder to me of what those people from November on were fighting for. They were fighting for aspirations to live in a free country, in a democratic country, a Ukraine that respects human rights, and dignity, rule of law, an end to corruption which has been such a cancer for Ukraine for so many years.

[8:03] A Western orientation. Essentially everything that Vladimir Putin is opposed to. He views all of those things as a threat not only to his own rule, but if they spread in countries along Russia's borders, as a threat to, to his interests there. People say the best

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way we can respond to Russia is by helping Ukraine. That's true.

[8:23] Help it financially, economically. I would like to see provision of military assistance, Intel sharing, all those things are great. But it's really hard for Ukraine to focus on fixing its own problems when part of its country has already annexed by Russia. Other parts are being destabilized by Russian forces, and you have tens of thousands of troops along the Russian-Ukrainian border. We have to accompany our efforts to assist Ukraine with strong push-back against what I would argue is the most serious threat the international community has faced in decades, that posed by Vladimir Putin.

[8:57] In the face of naked Russian aggression, the West cannot simply sit by and engage in a business as usual kind of approach. We have to give meaning to the word unacceptable. If we say Russian actions are unacceptable, what are we going to do so as not to accept it? And that's why I argue, and I think Anders agrees, with a very tough, hard-hitting sanctions policy to push back on this. The two rounds of sanctions that the US and EU have already announced were decent first steps, but only first steps. And they also happened weeks ago.

[9:31] It is past time for the West, for the EU, the United States, Canada as well -- let's not forget Canada -- in imposing additional hard-hitting, tough sanctions against Putin and his clique. If we don't act decisively now, our enemies will no longer fear us, and our allies will no longer trust us. We have to shift from a policy of reacting to events on the ground. Waiting for Putin and Russia to move. We need to pre-empt this aggression and try to prevent further actions of it.

[10:04] We also need by the way, to continue implementation of the Sergei Magnitsky act. The sanctions I've just been talking about, would be for what Russia's doing in Ukraine. Magnitsky legislation which was passed in 2012 imposes sanctions for abuse of human rights inside Russia. We have to do both at the same time.

[10:22] The Putin regime, in my view, is a thoroughly corrupt authoritarian regime that will do anything to stay in power, and that's what we're seeing play out in Ukraine. This is an extension of domestic politics being played out in, in Ukraine.

[10:35] Putin's paranoia, which was heightened almost a decade ago with the rose and orange revolutions in Georgia and in Ukraine peaked again with events starting in November of last year, when he saw tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people turn out in the streets of Ukraine.

[10:50] The crackdown that we're seeing by Putin inside Ukraine, which he put Yanukovych up to is also being played out inside Russia. The worst crackdown against human rights since the breakup of the Soviet Union and possibly even further back, maybe to the [inaudible 11:04] period.

[11:06] We, we are seeing Putin with his mind thinking he's winning, and this is a dangerous mindset for us to be faced with. It's Ukraine now, could be Moldova very soon, could be Latvia and Estonia, members of the EU and NATO with sizable Russian populations where Putin wouldn't necessarily send troops across the border, but would

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still try to destabilize the situation.

[11:29] How we, in the west, rise to the challenge says as much about us as it says about Russia, and that's why we need to respond. Are we going to place business interests ahead of principle, ahead of what we stand for in the west against the false hope of, of further engagement or efforts for strategic partnership.

[11:50] What kind of relationship after all can we expect with a regime that doesn't give a damn about the human rights of its own citizens, but then pursues under the patina of legitimacy in pursuing interests of Russians or ethnic Russians or Russian speakers, whatever phrase you want to use in other countries because it's politically expedient, because it furthers Putin's domestic interests.

[12:14] Putin has fabricated the threats to Russians in Ukraine, and so it's time to state the truth and let people know what's going on. To wrap up, now is no longer the time for wait and see, it's time for action; it's time for resolve, for strong leadership, for solidarity with Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia.

[12:33] Putin is the leader of modern authoritarianism, which freedom house has focused on for a number of years.

[12:40] We do need to see containment of his efforts; we need to push back against what he's trying to do. At the end of the day, this is about a fight for freedom, and Vladimir Putin poses one of the greatest threats to it, thank you.

Elise: [12:54] Thank you, David. Um, Andrew will go now and he'll talk about, um, how time is now to engage Russia as opposed to contain them.

Andrew Weiss: [13:04] Thank you Lisa, and thank you to the McCain Institute and to the Center of McCain for making this event possible. I think we're all here, and our presence is to honor his service and to really reflect on what his life has meant for our country and talk about some of these issues because they are very important as David just laid out.

[13:20] Um, no one in this room I think will want to sugarcoat or excuse what Russia is doing in Ukraine. There's no excuse for its aggression and the violence that we've seen across Ukraine, uh, in recent weeks. So, I don't think there's anyone in this room who isn't angry about what's happening and isn't very worried that we may be seeing these two very important countries in the heart of Europe nose-diving into war at this very moment.

[13:42] There's fragmentary reports coming out of Eastern Ukraine that there may have in fact been armed conflict between Ukrainian and Russian army units over the course of the day.

[13:51] No one in this room, I think, wants to see, uh, Vladimir Putin have his vision of a more nationalistic foreign policy, where national identity drives as he was saying it, uh, you know, the goals of all statecraft sort of reside in the national identity of Russia, and its identity.

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[14:12] We've got a long history in the 20th century, a very bitter history, I think that, that kind of talk makes all of us very worried.

[14:17] I think no one in this room wants to ignore the tremendous sacrifices that David [inaudible 14:21] was describing that the Ukrainian people have made for freedom. No one wants to see Ukrainians not be the ones who decide their destiny, and I don't think anyone in this room doesn't want to see Russia pay a price for its conduct in terms of international program and isolation.

[14:37] The question is what do you do, and I hope in our discussions even, we can talk about the options and we can talk about the policy choices. One of the things that people sort of [inaudible 14:47] onto is the concept of containment.

[14:49] If you go back to the early days of the Cold War in 1947, President Truman faced a really difficult situation with the possibility of Greece and Turkey slipping into the Russian embrace with Soviet, and Soviet embrace, and seeing huge devastation across Western Europe, making those governments very, very vulnerable.

[15:08] And so, at that time, he created the Truman Doctrine and then eventually put us on a course to build the institutions and the security mechanisms that saw us through the Cold War, and helped defend Western Europe against Soviet encroachment, but that was not, uh, how do I say this, that was a very different period in history.

[15:26] And, I think, for anyone to sort of look at one size fits all solution and say that those tools and those techniques are going to work today probably needs to think about what's different about today.

[15:35] So, if you looked at what's going on right now, our allies are presumably just as weak willed and divided as they were in the late 1940s. There was very much in dynamic where the US had to badger and control and really, in some cases, humiliate our Western European allies to understand the scale what they're up against.

[15:52] There are parallels, there's real issues at the moment between the US and our European partners, excuse me, our European partners in understanding the scale of what we're dealing with, but the world today is very different.

[16:03] We have a globalized economy, Russia is part of that globalized economy, for better, for worse. Russia is clearly a more competitive [inaudible 16:08] business power in that global system, but we are not in the same position we were at the end of the 1940s to dictate the terms of Russia's role in the international system.

[16:17] In many respects, Russia is bad as its behavior has been in recent months, uh, has some complementary interest ours. They have a similar view about fighting nonproliferation, similar view about defeating radical extremism, similar view about concerns about China's rise.

[16:33] So, for us to sort of assume across the board that our interests are inherently conflictual, are inherently competitive, maybe a bit of an overstatement.

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[16:41] Um, there is no global ideological competition underway, much as the Russians, they try to portray that ideological competition with their attacks on Western values on multiculturalism, on the rights of LGBT people around the world; there is not a two camp world that is emerging where those views are tolerated in, in, in broad numbers.

[17:00] So, for me, the question is why did it work, why did it work in the Cold War era dealing with Soviet Union, and why might not it work today. Containment worked in the Cold War period because we had deterrence.

[17:14] We had a credible military threat to use force to defend our treaty partners in Europe, Asia, and elsewhere, in the Middle East. Today, I'm not sure if anyone in this room believes unless we make a threat to use our military that we will be able to defend each and every country that Russia is causing trouble for, and it's a large scale open-ended defense commitment that we're talking about.

[17:37] Containment also worked because we have strong allied support and strong partners around the world. You look at the way the Europeans are responding to this crisis, you look at the way China and other powers are responding as well, you have to ask yourself, where are the partners for the United States.

[17:50] Can our approach succeed if we do it on our own, I have my, my, my doubts. Finally, containment worked because they were strong domestic support inside the United States for confronting the Soviet threat. The US people were willing to defeat Soviet expansionism at great personal cost in terms of the outlays for our defense, and outlays for support around the world for economic development and freedom.

[18:12] I'm not sure after 13 years at war whether the American people, when they look at the situation that's unfolding in Eastern Europe today are willing to make comparable sacrifices. So with that I look forward to this discussion, Elise, thanks again for moderating this discussion.

Elise: [18:27] Thanks very much Andrew. Now Anders will offer the rebuttal, and each team will have three minutes.

Anders Aslund: [18:35] Yeah, thank you very much and uh, uh, thank you to the McCain Institute and Kurt Volker for the invitation. Eh, yes. This is a debate we need to have. What is missing here? And first of all, what kind of a power is Russia today? You seem to suggest that we don't know what Russia wants. It's very clear that Russia today is a revisionist power. A revengist power.

[19:04] President Putin himself has said, and repeated it now, that eh, the end of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe in the last century.

[19:17] And the the sort of wonderful article by Andranik Migranyan in Izvestia two weeks ago, one of Putin's many propagandists, saying that Hitler was good until 1939, when he gathered the lands of uh, eh, Austria, the Sudetenland, and [inaudible 19:39] peacefully. And this is the most official newspaper we see in Russia today.

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[19:47] So what has happened is that Putin himself, on the 18th of March, made the grand speech on, uh, uh, the importance of Russian speaking people and that it must be brought together. So the question isn't, is one how can we stop Putin?

[20:08] And essentially there are two answers to this question. One is that the, we, uh, we stop him with war which inevitably is happening now. Because so little, as David elaborated upon, has been done to stop him. Or we really throw in everything in terms of sanctions in order to stop him.

[20:31] Can we stop him with sanctions? I'm not sure. But I would certainly to try do something rather than talking about the possibility of further sanctions. So, but let me take up this how strong is Russia? Russia is much weaker than the Soviet Union.

[20:49] Russia's share of global GDP today is less than three percent. And if you take off NATO's GDP, six percent. Russia's arms expenditure, military expenditure, is less than one tenth of the NATO expenditure. Even one third of, uh, EU arms expenditure.

[21:12] So Russia is weak. Is it vulnerable? You bet. If you eh, count out Russia from the international system, through the SWIFT system, or if you simply sanction the big state banks, Russia is done. Eh, this will hit Russia very hard. Already the market uh, eh fluctuations during March cut off two percent of Russia's GDP this year.

[21:43] Russia can easily be hit much more. Eh, where does the relevant Russian technology come from? The United States? How can Russia develop its oil and gas in the future? Through cooperation with American company, most are imported with Exxon and with US, um, oil service companies and US, uh, oil technology. Russia is much more eh vulnerable than we think. And uh eh one third of Russian military equipment is dependent on cooperation with Ukraine. So Russia is eh, President Putin is heavily overplaying his hand. So only the foolish would not stand up to him.

Elise: [22:34] All right. Thanks Anders, and then Tom let's, Tom will bring us home. And then we'll open it up, I'm going to...

Thomas Graham: [22:39] We'll home already. Elise let me thank you as well for, for moderating this event. The McCain Institute for inviting us. It really is an important topic. It's been an important topic for the past 40 years, but it's nice to see that it's an important topic once again, and we can gather such an audience to talk about this. Uh, I...The, the important question that we need ask right up front is what are we trying to achieve? What do we want for the future? What do we want for Ukraine?

[23:11] Uh, we're all I think very passionate about uh the advancement of democracy in the world. We want to see Ukraine, uh, have a chance to to develop a full-blooded democracy in their own country. They need to develop a national consensus about where their country is going. Uh, and they need to be able to put together the foundation of a prosperous economy going forward. Uh Russia, to a certain extent, at this point poses a threat to all of those.

[23:42] But it's also if you look, uh, at where Ukraine is located; it is also a country that is

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going to be important to Ukraine's ability, uh, to build a prosperous economy going forward. We know the dependency, oil and gas. Uh, gas in particular. Uh, but a great uh of Ukraine's trade is also with Russia. So the question you have to ask, is how are you going to build this prosperous economy, unless Russia is part of the solution at some point? How do we get Russia to be part of the solution?

[24:15] I think that is the question that we need to focus on now. How do we get it to be part of the solution, not of the problem? The second question that we have to ask for ourselves, is what are we prepared to do and in particular, what sacrifices are we prepared to make in order to achieve this vision for Ukraine?

[24:33] My colleagues have argued for tougher sanctions. They've argued that it's going to be easy because the Russian economy is weak. Because Russia is corrupt.

[24:47] I would argue that the sanctions will only bite there when they bite here. That's the question that we all have to ask ourselves. Where does this rank in our priorities? What sacrifices are we prepared to make uh as a country uh, in order to see these, uh, uh, goals achieved in Ukraine? What are our leaders prepared to ask us to do, uh, in order to advance the cause of democracy, uh, and freedom, uh, in Ukraine? And then finally, I think we need to take a hard look at the question of Ukraine. What is Ukraine at this point?

[25:24] What has been striking over the past few weeks is how quickly the government in Ukraine disappeared. The lack of authority. A country that we thought was unified is beginning to break down into its constituent parts. The debate over what Ukraine is, is one that the Ukrainians need to have, and they haven't had the answer to that yet.

[25:46] What we need to do with Russia, uh, I think is to create the space in which the Ukrainians can have that debate in a productive way and in order to do that, the United States needs to, uh, combine, not only resistance to what the Russians have done up to this point, to some extent find a way to accommodate their interest so that the Ukrainians themselves will have a more peaceful environment in which to work out their differences.

Elise: [26:13] Thanks Tom. All right, I'm going to start with a few questions for, uh, as moderator's prerogative. A reminder that we're um on Twitter. The hashtag is #MIDebateRussia. So if you have any questions, if you're watching online, please tweet them to us, and we'll see if we can get, um, as many as we can in. I'm going to start, um, with David and Anders.

[26:37] Um, Anders you said Russia is a much weaker power, you know, they're, um, military purchases is much less than NATO, economically not as strong, but it does seem to be that Russia is still holding a lot of cards here. Economic sanctions, although right now are fairly weak, don't seem to be deterring him, he has economic cards to play whether it's with Ukraine, whether it's with oil and gas to Europe and trade.

[27:03] At the same time, as weak as you say that he is, he's keeping the West off balance and the initiative seems to be with Putin with the West scrambling to catch up. Doesn't seem to care that he's not in the G8 right now. Always thought it was a bit of a club for,

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uh, for uh dilettantes if you will. Um, and it's cozying now up to the BRIC countries, is still in the G20 and a member, permanent member of the UN Security Council. So who's holding the cards here?

Anders: [27:34] Well, it's easy to confuse uh eh folly and strength. This is what I would argue is that with the stuff foolishness of Putin and of course certain eh vacuum in the West, but the West doesn't act. When the West act, it can act.

[27:55] So what this reminds me of a lot, that's when Saddam Hussein invaded an annexed Kuwait, to my mind that's the last annexation of a country that we saw, and then it took half a year where before the West woke up, but it woke up heavily.

[28:16] And as we are now seeing, uh, Russian troops subversively, covertly moving into, eh, Eastern Ukraine, the Donetsk region, this is totally unacceptable. President Putin has violated all kinds of international agreements.

[28:36] Eh, everything that has been worth something for the last 40 years and that means that it's pretty meaningless to conclude a new agreement with him, and uh, I think it was Andrew who mentioned the non-proliferation regime. Well, Ukraine was the main success in the non-proliferation regime because it gave up, agreed to give up its nuclear arms in '94 when it was the third strongest nuclear power in the world.

[29:08] And then what happened then? Well, eh, uh, it's a sign the Budapest Agreement which was only a memorandum, not a treaty. The US, the UK and Russia, eh, assured, eh, Ukraine that it would have its security, its national integrity. Now we know that those assurances were absolutely nothing.

[29:34] If I were Iranian, I would say, "Let us get the nuclear arms as quickly as possible after this important lessons that we have learned from Ukraine." I think the Kazakhs are thinking the same thing, they also gave up their eh eh nuclear arms. And it will look up, eh, eh...

Elise: [29:56] All right, just a few seconds left, we're...

Anders: [29:57] Yeah.

Elise: [29:58] ...Letting, giving you guys a little extra time, but I'm going to start cracking the whip.

Anders: [30:01] Yeah. Tom said, sanctions will only bite there when they bite here. Uh, the Iranian economy is about half the Russian economy when the sanctions started. Does anybody feel that the sanctions on Iran bite you? Absolutely not. So this is simply not the relevant argument. The Russian trade with the US is less than one percent of US trade.

Elise: [30:27] OK, but for team Andrew and Tom, we're talking about...

Andrew: [30:32] Are we going to get another 30 seconds then?

Facilitator: [30:33] Who's...We'll give you another 30 seconds...Who's holding the cards

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here? Is President Putin doing what he's doing what he's doing from a position of strength or is the United States and the Europe are saying, and President Obama, you know, seemed to give a little dig at President Putin that he's a weak regional power.

Thomas: [30:50] Hey, can I argue that everybody is doing this out of weakness, on all sides. Uh, you know Putin does have a problem of how he's going to maintain Russia going forward.

[31:04] Uh, there are questions about, uh, how firmly he actually sits, uh, over this Russian political system, uh, and Russian nationalism today, particularly if you can annex a historic land like Crimea carries a great deal of political weight. And we've seen the euphoria in Russia, uh, over the past, over the past several weeks, the increased popularity for Putin.

[31:30] You can hardly find a person in Moscow that isn't, uh, euphoric about what has happened in the past several weeks following upon, uh, a very good Olympics where Russia finished first, and so forth.

[31:42] Uh, and the danger in the situation of what's happening in Eastern Ukraine is not so much that Putin is in control of these events as he may be forced by events on the ground to move in a direction that he does not want to and doesn't feel comfortable with at this point because of the way he's postured himself domestically in Russia at this point.

[32:03] Uh, second, if you look at the west, I think we would all agree here what you don't have here is unity. Uh, biting sanctions, talk to the Germans about biting sanctions, talk to the, uh, the English about London.

[32:18] Uh, the reason we don't have biting sanctions, the reason we've gone after individuals, uh, who have very few assets in the west to freeze, who don't travel to the United States or Western Europe all that often, uh, is because we can't agree that what's happening in Ukraine demands sacrifices and equal sacrifices, uh, in the West, uh, in order to, uh, in order to deal with the problems that Russia might have created.

[32:46] Uh, and there isn't a leader in, in the western world who has yet stood up and made a forceful case, "Why their population should make a sacrifice, for what specific goals?"

Thomas: [32:58] I'm going to, um, since you finished in your 30 seconds, in 30 seconds, what do you think, uh, President Putin's end game is? What is, what are his ultimate ambitions?

[33:06] Is it kind of to show discontent before the election or, or, does he want to annex his territory?

Andrew: [33:13] Can I jump in?

Elise: [33:14] Sure.

Andrew: [33:15] I think that's probably one of the cardinal problems of this whole crisis.

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No one knows. You talk to people in US Government, they don't know, you talk to people in European governments, they don't know.

[33:25] We've entered into a world where there are no effective channels with the Russian government, and we're basically all, you know, either in our public and private discussions sort of trading our talking points, and it's all sort of formulaic and predictable, but at the end of the day, Putin is rolling out initiatives and we all basically find ourselves as we've seen this week with the situation in East Ukraine, we're just struggling to understand what's going on.

[33:48] There's a lot of subterfuge, there's a lot of attempts to kind of sow confusion -- it's deliberate on the Russian part -- and we're all basically stuck in a highly reactive mode.

[33:56] And the only tool people have been able to latch on to are the sanctions because precisely, as Tom said, there's no agreement about other steps.

Elise: [34:04] David, in your opening remarks, you talked about possibly, uh, President Putin wanting to annex even some of the Baltic States, members that are members of the EU. Um, what do you, what do you recommend we do here?

[34:16] I mean, are you talking about a permanently military presence in the Baltics? Should NATO be recalibrated as an anti-Russian alliance?

[34:24] There's talk about, you know, should we, should the US be organizing, um, some of the regions along Russia's periphery, um, that'll give reassurance to the allies and, and send a message to Putin.

[34:36] Do you recommend a course like this or is that going to just antagonize him further?

David: [34:41] To be clear, I didn't say that Putin would, wants to annex part of the Baltic States.

Elise: [34:46] You said it was questionable, whether he could.

David: [34:48] No, what, what he wants to do is to destabilize them. He would like nothing more than to show the EU and NATO, because Latvia and Estonia are both members, uh, that he can even play with those organizations, members of those organizations.

[35:01] So, I'm not saying he wants to annex part of their territory, um, but in the case of Moldova maybe with the Transnistrian part, uh, Andrew is right. There are, most of us don't know what he has in mind, that's why I don't want us to be in reactive mode.

[35:17] I want us to be proactive, to preempt and prevent what Putin is trying to do and to hit him with hard sanctions, and Tom's also right. There isn't unity among Western allies, but that's why US leadership is so critical.

[35:30] Let's remember that capital flight in the first quarter of this year was a little more

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than it was all of last year. The rubles value is in decline, the stock market is declining, the Russian economy is stagnating, and predictions for its growth are actually turning into predictions of decline.

[35:46] That's one of Putin's biggest challenges right now, and that's why he wants to deflect attention from his internal challenges and to rally the troops, but I would argue, Tom, the reason it was so popular is it was so easy, it was bloodless.

[36:00] If there were body bags going back to Russia, I bet you there wouldn't have been 70 percent support. In the few people who are speaking out are getting fired from universities, news agencies are getting shut down, they're being threatened, they're being outed if you will.

[36:16] It takes an incredibly courageous soul these days in Moscow to criticize what Putin is doing, but that's reflective of the ugly environment that Putin has created in the 14 years he's been in power and, and so, it is incumbent upon the west to stand with those people, and to stand with others.

[36:33] I never said sanctions would be easy, but I don't see an alternative to tough hitting sanctions right now. In fact, they should have been done weeks ago.

Elise: [36:42] What do you think, Tom? We're talking about sanctions, but also do you think that, I mean, some of these actions beside sanctions such as what NATO is considering these type of things, could really further antagonize President Putin?

Thomas: [36:56] Look, I mean, I am probably the odd person out here. We don't know what Putin might plan in detail, but it is and if Putin hasn't talked for the past 12 years about what his vision for Russia is, it isn't as if he hasn't talked in the past two years about what his vision is for the former Soviet space.

[37:18] He's talked about Eurasian, the creation of Eurasian Union, the regathering of all the former Soviet space, and to some end, that is going to be dominated by Russia.

[37:28] It's an entity that doesn't make sense without Ukraine for commercial, economic, and strategic reasons. Uh, and so, uh, the ultimate goal I think for Putin is to bring Ukraine into Russia's orbit as part of his Eurasian unit.

[37:45] Uh, I also believe that he understands that this is something that he's incapable of doing at this point and the goal in the, in the immediate term is to at least create some leverage over the formation of a government in Kiev, so that the government that ultimately forms is at a minimum neutral and not hostile to Russia.

[38:10] And so, the game here is for Ukraine over the long term, uh, and we're in initial phases of that. The second point I would make is that there is a genuine pride in Russia today, and it's not only because of Crimea, Crimea is the last event.

[38:31] I've been in Moscow a couple of times over the past couple of months. What really disturbed Russians across the political spectrum was the unrelenting criticism of Russia in the run-up to the Olympics, that they thought was unjustified, that was directed

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against Russia as a people and not specifically at Putin.

[38:50] That was followed by a spectacular Olympic show.

[38:53] Uh, the Russians who they thought would finish themselves, thought they'd finish sixth finished first in the medal count and now they've had a nearly flawless operation in Crimea.

[39:03] They're on a roll, they feel good, and part of this is payback to the way they felt, that they've been treated by the west over the past, at least couple of months, and longer than that. It's not only Putin, it's Russians that feel pride once again.

Elise: [39:17] OK, I want to pick up on that, and you guys I know want to respond, but maybe you could fold it into this. Do we have ourselves a little bit the US and the west to blame a little bit for this Russian insecurity?

[39:29] If you look at the years after the Soviet collapse, the Russians watched with alarm as outside powers, the United States, NATO expansion, then you saw Islamic groups moving in, and you don't have to be a quasi-dictator like Putin to feel nervous about what happened in Kiev.

[39:48] A democratically elected leader ousted by a mob, that's a bad precedent no matter how hard, how you slice it, especially when the US is cheering on the protesters in the Maidan and the assistant secretary is handing our bagels.

[40:03] I mean do you think, do you think...

David: [40:05] Cookies.

Elise: [40:06] Cookies, I thought it was bagels but, doesn't matter, sandwiches.

[40:10] [laughter]

Elise: [40:11] Do you think that the United States does provoke Russia and, and play into those insecurities that, that if you look at the region are a little bit, you know, legitimate?

Andrew: [40:22] Let's, let's look at the reality which is Russia's most stable secure borders are with those countries that are members of the EU and NATO. So, NATO enlargement in fact has not posed a threat, it has actually bolstered Russia's security and yet NATO enlargement was cited in the, what, 2010 military doctrine as the gravest danger to Russia, which is utter nonsense.

[40:46] Now, there may be a psychology about this, maybe we haven't sat down on the couch with them to understand this, but we actually have promoted greater security and stability in Europe through NATO enlargement.

[40:57] The issue about extremism, let's remember that Russia's, uh, attack and war against Chechens in '94 and '96 and again in '99 and the suspicions that the Chechens

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were behind the bombings in '99. They are the ones who created the extremist threat through the, the, the slaughter of Chechens, indiscriminate slaughter through the, the bombs that were dropped, that Russia has nobody else to blame for this extremist threat than Russia itself.

[41:25] Then, the way Yeltsin approached it, both times, and then Putin took it over. In fact, that's how Putin came to power, let's not forget. Um, the point about, Tom made about Ukraine neutral, uh, you know I really hope the days when Russia and the United States decide the orientations and memberships in organizations for other countries are over. Let's let Ukraine decide if it wants to be neutral after the things have settled down.

Elise: [41:49] Well, I'm going to just interrupt right there. The US wasn't exactly neutral about whether the unit, whether Moldova or Ukraine or any of those countries, I'll give you a little extra time, would join the EU.

[42:00] The US actively partici-, actively campaigned on the EU behalf, so was it really Russia's choice.

Andrew: [42:06] Well, uh, I would actually disagree. I think the US was asleep, uh, when the EU was pushing to sign the DCFDA in association...

Elise: [42:13] But after those protests started out, you bet, you bet.

Andrew: [42:16] Sure, sure, but in fact because what the people for the most part represented in Maidan reflect our interests. We don't want Ukraine to join the west and orient itself to the west at the exclusion of good relations with Russia.

[42:30] Geography alone dictates that Ukraine has to have good relations with Russia, but, if Ukrainians were led to believe by their president, democratically elected president by the way, who is not permanently endowed with legitimacy through an election in 2010, he forfeited it for many reasons, we can get into that, but, uh, what the people and protesters in Maidan were representing reflected US interests.

[42:54] And so we did wake up belatedly and supported what they called for. They were lied and manipulated and then Yanukovych ordered the use of force against them on November 30, December 1.

[43:05] That's when we should have hit Yanukovych with tough hard-hitting sanctions which I think would've brought his regime down like a house of cards, may have saved over 100 lives in February if we had acted more firmly then and perhaps wouldn't have this whole crisis that we have right now.

Thomas: [43:20] Can I jump in here?

Elise: [43:21] Sure, yeah, you have a few minutes.

[43:22] [crosstalk]

Thomas: [43:23] Thank you very much, because one of the questions we have to ask

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ourselves is who did the people in Maidan represent?

[43:31] What do we know about them? Was this all of Ukraine, even at its large is you're talking about perhaps a million people of a country of 43 million. If you look at the demographics of the people who died in the last few days of the conflict, they're almost all from central and eastern Ukraine, not western, excuse me central and western Ukraine, not from eastern Ukraine.

[43:52] Ukraine has been a divided society for the past 25 years, uh, if not longer, uh, and simply to look at people in a square and to say that these are the representatives of the Ukrainian people, uh, is not sufficient.

[44:07] You have to ask a broader question, why weren't the Easterners there? Why are the Eastern part of Ukraine resisting at this point. Uh, the problem we have is we see something like this and we refuse to ask ourselves the fundamental questions about what we're really looking at because we see something that is supportive of the values that we would like to see, the pro-European orientation for example.

[44:31] But if you looked at the polling before, uh, the latest events, Ukrainians were split on whether they wanted to be part of the EU, or wanted a close association with, with the Russians.

[44:41] If you asked about NATO, there was a sharp divide between those, uh, in eastern Ukraine, uh, and western Ukraine. And finally, if you look at the composition of the government, this government, this interim government that we're supporting as a legitimate representative of the Ukrainian people is dominated by people from the center and, uh, and the West. There are very few easterners involved in it.

[45:05] So the question we have to ask ourselves is in fact how do we create a situation in which the legitimate voice of the Ukrainian people is heard and that they sort out their own, their own interests. That I would argue is through elections, but it's not presidential election, it's [inaudible 45:21] type of elections where you relegitimize through a democratic process, the people who are going to speak for the Ukrainian people as a whole.

Elise: [45:31] Andrews, I will give you a quick...

Anders: [45:32] Yeah, it's very easy. Tom, what you said now is straightforward anti-democratic. You said that the problem with Ukraine is that it's divided. "Sorry, how is this country, I heard that you have one Democratic Party and one Republican Party. Shouldn't you have one big United America party in line with Putin's Russia?"

[45:55] Uh, the problem with Ukraine from Putin's point of view is exactly what you say. Ukraine had a big democratic breakthrough, and they wanted freedom, they wanted to fight against corruption and Putin represents authoritarians and corruption and he understood it. He acted out of desperation and weakness and [inaudible 46:17] .

Elise: [46:17] Is it that black and white Andrews. I mean, it is, there are many, there are

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many Ukrainians in, Russian-speaking Ukrainians that feel that they're treated in the, in these regions like second-class citizens and that their interests are not represented.

Andrew: [46:34] That's not true.

Anders: [46:36] I go to Ukraine several times every year. I've been to Crimea every time for the last eight years, there's no sense of any discrimination against Russia.

Elise: [46:47] So, it's just fabricated?

Anders: [46:48] It's just, the things that are of matters is that Russia does not have a full status of official language, but for teaching in the schools is in Russian, where you have a dominant Russian population.

[47:03] They do watch Russian, uh, television, so its small things, but its not significant discrimination. You can compare with how national minorities are treated in Russia. They have none of the privileges the Russians have in Ukraine.

David: [47:19] Elise, can I just very quickly?

Elise: [47:20] Just quickly please.

David: [47:20] International Republican Institute recent survey, April 5th, showing 74 percent of Russian, the Russian speaking population in East and South Ukraine said they were not under pressure or threat because of their language and their identity.

[47:32] So this, this underscores Putin has fabricated this. It's, it's baloney. It doesn't exist. The divide is grossly overstated by Tom. Ukrainians even in Crimea don't want to live under the Russian thumb, but when there are guns being bandied about and brandished, it changes the mood and the thinking.

[47:54] When people think that their government in Kiev can't defend them and they don't have much choice, uh, you know, we should put ourselves in their shoes.

[48:03] Um, why is it that in, was it [inaudible 48:06] that the, the goons who were raiding buildings went to the theater instead of the city government because they didn't live there. They weren't from there, they were being sent in

Elise: [48:17] All right, let's, let's move on. Um, Andrew, you talked about.

Andrew: [inaudible 48:24] [48:24] moving on or?

[48:25] [laughter]

Elise: [48:28] No, I think we've, I think we've exhausted that point. Andrew, um,...

Andrew: [48:32] Or we could go on.

Elise: [48:33] We could, we could go on, but unfortunately we're, I want to get to the audience. One more question, um, is Russia, we talk about we need Russian cooperation,

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um, on international issues.

[48:45] Is Russia really a credible partner on the world stage, if you look at what's happening in Syria, the kind of double game they're playing with supporting president, uh, you know supporting a political solution, but at the same time continuing to arm the Assad regime, there are other areas on the world stage.

[49:01] Can President Putin really be trusted and are we getting such great cooperation that it's worth kind of not giving them a pass certainly, but, but treating them a little bit more with, with kid gloves on this.

Andrew: [inaudible 49:15] [49:15] answers now. I think that what we need to do is step back a second and say, "What's the US-Russian relationship about?"

[49:21] And as one of my colleagues and friends likes to say, it's a lot like the TV show Seinfeld. It's a relationship about "nothing," and it's been that way for quite some time.

[49:31] And so we saw with, uh, the reset, we saw some low hanging fruit, we saw some important achievements in the first couple of years of the Obama administration and then they ran out of gas.

[49:40] And they ran out of gas in part because there wasn't a real clear agenda for US-Russian relations and since you know [inaudible 49:47] Moscow, there have been a bunch of intervening events, it really has been a relationship where we've disengaged, we basically said we're not interested, we don't see much value in this. Um, and I don't think that's an unwise calculation.

[49:59] I think the danger from that policy is that now we're in a crisis, it would be nice to have access to our Russian counterparts to try to de-escalate and we don't have it. So all the specific issues on Iran, on nuclear proliferation, on counter-terrorism on [inaudible 50:15] spy.

[50:17] And so you can't point any of those particular issues and say, "It's not [inaudible 50:20] success." The one where you maybe could come closest to that is on the so-called P5-plus-1 process on Iran where so far we don't see Russia being a spoiler on record, but that potential is there and so there's talk and there are issues that are out there and the discussions about possible barter deal where Russia might end up marketing about half of Iran's crude oil production going to the tune of 500,000 barrels a day.

[50:44] Um, things like that could be very damaging to the negotiation, but at the end of the day, even in the Iran context, this is a negotiation between the United States and Iran primarily, and Russia will think about how to shore up its position.

[50:56] It's not a debate where the US has to bring Russia on board. It's a question where Russia can maybe be an enabler and a facilitator of success, but it's not the, the driver of success.

Elise: [51:06] But is it, is it this spotty cooperation because of our lack of engagement or is it because, at the end of the day, Russian interests don't necessarily always align with

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US interests.

Andrew: [51:17] Well, I think we've seen since the Cold War ended these ups and downs, and the relationship has just remained incredibly [inaudible 51:22] , I think David, Tom, and I have all served in government and seen both ends of that dynamic where the highs feel pretty high and the lows feel really low.

[51:30] This is the lowest it gets, and there is this basic question about "What is Putin doing?" His speech, when he took the, the, the formal step to annex Crimea, created a whole set of really serious questions about what, you know, the idea that Russia's the most divided nation, the idea that Russkii as opposed to Rossiiskii vision of ethnic identity.

[51:50] All these things are incredibly destabilizing, and you've seen, in Western Europe, an embrace of some of these ideological points by the far right. So, again, it's, this is a, a, a genie that's being let out of the box here.

Elise: [52:02] David, do you want to take that?

David: [52:03] Yeah. Un, un, until Putin bailed us out on the chemical weapons issue, Russia's role on Syria was nothing but negative and destructive. It wasn't just blocking UN Security Council Resolutions. It was selling and providing arms and weapons for a slaught-...for Assad to slaughter Syrians. Russia was guilty -- aiding and abetting that slaughter, that massacre.

[52:24] Um, and...And so Russia has, in my view, been, ah, so counter to our interests in Syria, um, and-and the chemical weapons issue now isn't even going well, because the, the weapons haven't even been turned over the...On schedule, the way they were.

[52:39] On Iran, eh, Andrews identified, I think, the problem there. Russia's also talking about building more nuclear reactors in Iran, which also seems to run counter to the-the united spirit we're supposed to present.

[52:49] Afghanistan, what is it, five percent now, reliance on a northern distribution network? And it's just going to, obviously, keep going down and down, as we withdraw from Afghanistan. Um, eh, R-Russia is increasingly irrelevant to our interests.

[53:03] Andrew used the phrase "we're running out of gas." The reason for that is they're an authoritarian, corrupt regime, and we're a democratic society. So, by definition, we're going to run out of gas. Our interests are just going to no longer coincide. So it shouldn't be a surprise that the way the Putin regime treats its own people is indicative of how it's going to behave in foreign policy.

[53:25] They, they, they trample their own citizens' human rights. They pretend to profess to care about the human rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine and elsewhere, when all they're doing is using it as a pretext and cover to-to destabilize and even annex, uh, neighboring countries' territory.

Elise: [53:42] OK. We're going to open up to questions from the audience. Um, I'm

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going to ask you if you would keep your question concise. If you have an affiliation, please, um, acknowledge it. And, keep your question to a question, and not a comment.

[53:57] I'm going to start with a question from Twitter, as you think about your questions, um, from @madprofs666.

[54:05] [laughter]

Andrew: [54:07] That's a good one. We're supposed to define what that means?

[54:10] [laughter]

Elise: [54:11] It's open to interpretation, but it, it plays into what you were just saying, David. Um, and so can NATO undermine Putin domestically? The Ukraine invasion -- or I think this person means the Crimea invasion -- hasn't solved the human rights crisis in Russia.

[54:29] So should, should, uh, should NATO be taking steps to maybe destabilize the, the Russian regime, or, or, uh, to, uh, work towards better human rights in Russia? And it goes to the question about whether this should become an anti-Russia alliance.

David: [54:48] Is that for me or Andrew

Elise: [54:49] Why don't, why don't we start with, um, Tom and Andrew.

[54:53] [laughter]

Elise: [54:54] Two minutes.

Thomas: [54:55] All right, look, uh, Andrew will disagree with me on this, so we can, we can take, uh, we can take two minutes each and argue both.

Elise: [55:02] You can take one minute each, one minute each.

Thomas: [55:04] Well, look, the question is what are we trying to achieve, and how do you get there? Uh, I think we would all like to see Russia be a full-blooded democratic society that professed Western values. It isn't. It isn't going to get there for a long time.

[55:18] Uh, the question is what can outsiders do that is positive and instructive in that process? Uh, which we all know, at the end of the day, has to be something that the Russians do themselves.

[55:30] Uh, we can position ourselves in a way that narrows the space for the types of development we would like to see inside Russia, or we can position ourselves to try to open that. Uh, you know, my sense is a lot of the pressure that we put in anti-Russian policy by NATO, explicitly putting pressure, uh, would, in fact, uh, play into the fears that the Kremlin has, uh, create a, a much more repressive society inside.

[56:01] Uh, and it would also, uh, cower not necessarily the few people who really are courageous and will go out on a limb, but the broader mass of people that you actually

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need to create a democratic society, who don't want to be seen as traitors to their own country, as agents of foreign influence.

[56:18] And so, there's a delicate question here that we have to answer of how we go about treating this country, how we position ourselves. So that the people who aren't the heroes, but the people who actually make societies work over the long run, uh, have the courage, uh, in order to pursue the types of policies, the democratic types of practices that we would like to see done.

[56:43] It's a generational type of thing. Uh, it's not something that we're going to affect dramatically in the space of a few years.

Andrew: [56:50] Can I disagree with him?

Elise: [56:52] Quickly. Quick. You can quickly disagree with him.

Andrew: [56:52] OK, I'm kidding. I mean I...

[56:54] [laughter]

Andrew: [56:55] Just really fast. I-I think the thing that we also need to remember is that people have a pretty fixed-in-time model, I think, view of what Russia's transformation is. And it's largely about the disappointment that a lot of us feel, I think all four of us would feel, about the trajectory that started in '91 and then petered out, toward a more pluralistic and inclusive democratic society.

[57:14] So if you look now at Russia, you have very Europeanized, modern society in cities of more than a million, like Moscow. You have a very different Russia in the smaller urban centers, where the state is basically the deciding force in the economic vitality of those towns, largely through the defense industry.

[57:31] And then you have sort of huge parts of the country that are pretty atomized, and where people are kinda disconnected. They don't have running water. They don't have the Internet. So we just need to remember that Russia is, ultimately, a messy place. And for us to kind of create a mythologized version of black and white reform, and [inaudible 57:48] form, all that has really served us poorly in the past.

Elise: [57:51] OK, um, David or Anders, you want to, one of you...

David: [57:54] Yeah, uh, I'm not interested in destabilizing Russia. Um, I-I...

Elise: [57:58] Not destabilizing, but-but forcing democratic change there.

David: [58:02] I don't think we can force democratic change there. I am interested in going after people who abuse human rights, and engage in anti-democratic behavior. That's why I strongly support the Magnitsky legislation for people responsible for killing [inaudible 58:17] in jail.

[58:20] Um, ah, but let's...Let's remember that-that NATO has an obligation to its member

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states, under Article 5, and NATO has, over the past few years, done a decent job of contingency planning for the Baltics and others. Beefing up security for the Baltic States, for Poland, other countries in the region -- absolutely essential. These countries are fearful, and they should be. Because we, in-in part, we don't know where this is going next.

[58:45] Um, so, I-I-I think NATO has an obligation to prepare and beef up, and solidify the defenses of these countries. But let's also not forget that NATO has engaged with Russia for the past, what, 15 years. '97 was NATO-Russia council, uh, the signing, and-and-and Russia's been, you know, prancing through the halls of NATO for years. Um, look at where it's gotten us. What good has it done?

[59:11] I-I-I think the problem is the nature of the regime. I hate to repeat myself. Where's the nature of the regime, I'm...Frankly I...The term I'd rather use, Tom, is not Western values, but universal values. I don't expect Russia to be like a Western value country. I do expect it to live up to universal values, values that it signed up to in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

[59:32] But also, values that it signed up to in the OSCE, the Council of Europe. It doesn't live up, or abide by, these values that it's committed to, and-and it comes back to the point I tried to raise at the beginning, which is if we say their behavior is unacceptable, what are we going to do about it?

Elise: [59:49] OK. Anders, quickly.

Anders: [59:51] Very briefly. If I understood Tom rightly, uh, you said in order to limit Putin's domestic repression, we should accept his international aggression. Needless to-o-o say, I don't think so.

Elise: [60:06] OK. [laughs] OK, um we're going to go...

[60:09] [crosstalk]

Thomas: [60:09] I don't think that's what I said.

Elise: [60:10] W-...Sir, right here. And then right here and right here. OK?

[60:13] [background conversation]

Male Audience Member: [60:18] Thank you very much. I'm Benjamin Tua. I served as a foreign services officer in various parts of the former Soviet Union, including in the Crimea. Uh, given that there is no solution to the Ukrainian crisis, without Western and Russian agreement and cooperation, and, two, that for Russia, Ukraine is in a category all by itself.

[60:46] Uh, is there a solution that is possible to this crisis that is not along the lines of a solution, or the solution, that has worked very well for Finland? That is, a liberal democracy dynamic, transparent, but with a foreign policy, which is essentially neutral and very attentive to Russian concerns.

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Elise: [61:13] Very excellent and-and question that we've been speaking about a lot. Anders, do you want to kick it off.

Andres: [61:18] Yeah.

Elise: [61:19] Two minutes.

Anders: [61:20] I think that liberal democracy idea, or, uh, uh, on the Finnish lines, was a good idea when, uh, [inaudible 61:26] presented it, but that was long ago. I think that is impossible now because clearly Putin is not prepared to accept any democracy in Ukraine because that means that the, the Ukrainians explain to the Russian that his regime is not acceptable, and that's not acceptable to him.

[61:46] So, I don't see that this is in the cart, that's why I want to contain Russia.

Elise: [61:52] OK. Tom or Andrew, would you like to rebuttal?

Thomas: [61:56] Look, I mean, I, I think there is a solution to the Ukrainian crisis, but it is going to be one that has to take into account the interest of the Ukrainians themselves in all their multitude and different opinions, but also it's just reality of the way the world operates, or the big powers that have interests.

[62:16] Russia is a neighbor. I think you're right that they, for whatever reason, they have, a certain attitudes towards Ukraine. It is more salient for them than it is for many people in the West.

[62:27] And I see nothing wrong with some type of agreement among, uh, the United States, Russia, and the European Union that Ukraine is not going to be, become part of any type of military alliance.

[62:42] Something the Ukrainians have talked about themselves, that could be formalized in some sort of agreement. I also think, if you look at the other things that have been proposed, uh, the Russians call it federalization, the Ukrainian authorities in Kiev are talking about decentralization.

[63:01] Now, I realize that the devil is in the detail in something like this, but it is something that one ought to talk about, and why will you oppose to broader regional autonomy.

[63:11] Again, within limits, in a country that as, is as diverse as Ukraine, Russian language as well, a certain rights that can be provided, that, that don't undermine the, the right of the Ukrainians themselves and determine their own future.

[63:29] This as an interim solution that provides a type of political space that Ukraine needs in order to work out its own national consensus of what it is a society, how it rebuilds its economy, I think is important and it's something that we ought to look at.

[63:45] And I think, at the end of the day, uh, all crisis like this are resolved politically through diplomatic means. Uh, that's something along those lines is where we're going to

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end up. I would hope sooner as opposed to later, but that will depend on attitudes and, and a number of key capitals and in Kiev as well.

Elise: [64:03] OK, David.

David: [64:04] 10 seconds point. Just a contradiction, Tom, if I heard you right. Let Ukrainians determine their own future, but then you were talking about an agreement among the EU, Russia, and United States that would essentially make Ukraine neutral.

[64:16] I didn't hear you say Ukraine had a say in making itself neutral.

Thomas: [64:20] Can I answer that? I mean I've heard this argument, uh, a 100 times that Russia doesn't have a veto over what NATO does. NATO needs to make its decisions in the context in which it operates.

[64:36] The Russians have set this as a red line. So, yes, uh, NATO doesn't have to accept Ukraine because, uh, a number of Ukrainians said they want to come into NATO. NATO has to look at its own interests in a broader and broader spectrum.

[64:51] So, yes, I think an agreement among NATO members in Russia that Ukraine will be neutral, uh, does provide the type of political space that they need in order to focus on their domestic problems.

David: [65:03] Sorry, at the Bucharest Summit in 2008 declared that Ukraine and Georgia will become members. So, NATO has already spoken on this issue, number one.

[65:13] Number two, for the past several years, no one's been pushing Ukraine membership in NATO. This is a red herring. Yanukovych oddly enough actually increased cooperation with NATO while he was president, but he made it clear that he wasn't going to pursue membership, which is fine.

[65:30] Nobody is pushing membership for Ukraine in NATO. It's not the issue right now. There are other things they need to resolve, but this, this is just a false issue that's being raised.

Elise: [65:41] OK, we're going to move onto this woman in the second row in the red.

Female Audience Member: [65:46] My name is Anna [inaudible 65:48] , and I'm half Russian, half-Ukrainian.

[65:51] [laughter]

Female Audience Member: [65:52] So, I just wanted to make a comment as how people feel because I feel like people. I don't have much expertise on what Americans have to do certainly, but I can say that both Russians who are not supportive of Putin and Ukrainians feel hurt.

[66:14] For example, Tom Graham said that there is hardly one person in Moscow, who does not support the aggression. Nine days ago, 50,000 people were in the streets of

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Moscow. Uh, many were arrested, and I do not wish it on anyone to be put in Russian jail.

[66:39] And, uh, two days ago, huge demonstration was on [inaudible 66:45] and all they lead, people with very comfortable lives trust me, writers, actors, [inaudible 66:56] as they are used to be called, uh, intellectually. They were demonstrating and it was called, "March of Truth for Freedom of, uh, Press."

[67:09] And I maybe as naïve as many Ukrainians and Russians are, uh, but I do believe that Americans support freedom of press, um.

Elise: [67:19] Thank you.

Female Audience Member: [67:19] Uh, as for Ukrainians, one moment, the mob, I'm sorry.

Elie: [67:22] That's OK.

Female Audience Member: [67:24] It is very-very insulting to hear mob with regards to Maidan. Maidan was the most delightful, the most admirable way of people's self expression in Ukraine, and the only question I can ask is how often Tom Graham travels to Ukraine.

[67:44] [claps]

Elise: [67:46] Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your insights ma'am. Um, I'm just gonna, uh, Tom, if you just want to answer that question real quick, I think we'll move onto another question, just let the woman's comments stand.

Thomas: [67:57] It's, nobody wants to denigrate what people in Maidan did. They were demonstrating for what they thought was their own interest, the greater interest of their country. The question I'm asking is to what extent are they representative of all of Ukraine?

[68:13] We don't know the answer to that question. Uh, what I have said is that as opposed to a presidential election, I think that Ukraine needs to conduct a new model election. They need to re-legitimize elites across the board.

[68:29] It's not simply the president, who speaks for the Ukrainian people at this point? Is it just Maidan or the people who didn't participate in Maidan also have a voice in how their country should be governed over the long-term.

[68:42] So, let's re-legitimize the political elites through an election process, and let's see what decisions they make.

[68:48] Uh, that I think is the appropriate way forward as opposed to us sitting here and deciding which voices we've heard over the past two months are the genuine voice of the Ukrainian people. We don't know that, the Ukrainians ought to make their voices heard.

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Elise: [69:03] Thanks, I think we...

Female Audience Member: [inaudible 69:06] [69:06] when did you last?

Thomas: [69:09] I was last in Ukraine a year-and-a-half ago.

Elise: [69:12] OK, thank you David Ensor and then this gentleman next to him and, and we'll get a few...

Male Audience Member: [69:18] Good evening gentlemen, David Ensor from Voice of America. I'd like to ask Tom and Andrew about something David said, uh, this is a question that my Polish friends ask me.

[69:29] Uh, if Russian troops move into Ukraine, the main part of Ukraine, should the United States and the NATO allies move more troops into the Baltics. After all, Mr. Putin has said he has an interest; he has the right to assert, to assert Russian power in defense of Russians who don't live in Russia.

[69:48] There are a lot of Russians who live in Riga and live in Lithuania, and I know the governments of the Baltics are pretty nervous about the situation. So, would you favor what David obviously does, which is a reinforcement, more NATO troops in the Baltics in the event Russians move into Ukraine.

Elise: [70:04] Thanks, David.

Andrew: [70:06] Just real fast, I have no doubt that we're heading in that direction. I think it's a question of what presence and what the modalities are. So, I think at this point regardless of whether, you know, if the tragedy doesn't come to pass which I think we all hope in terms of no full scale military intervention, I think there's going to be any number of steps that the United States and our allies pursue to reassure the Baltic countries.

[70:29] But I think as well the Romanians, the Bulgarians will probably feel the most exposed.

Elise: [70:33] Quick...

David: [70:34] I do worry a little bit that we in the west are setting the bar so high for triggering a response from us, full scale invasion of Ukraine.

[70:47] Putin is able to destabilize Ukraine well short of sending tanks across the border. We're seeing it right now. Um, so, we can't set the bar so high that we may say, "Well, if he does this, we won't do anything."

[71:03] He's already doing it. There are other means for him to do it, and, as David said, you accurately reflected my views; we absolutely have to protect these countries.

[71:13] If we don't, NATO alliance is meaningless, Israel will question our reliability, our allies everywhere around the world will question our credibility and our enemies will also smile and that makes me very worried.

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Elise: [71:27] OK, um, we're going to go right here, then we're going to go to this gentleman here, then we're going to, did you have a question, yeah.

[71:34] And I think we might be out of time, um, sir.

Male Audience Member: [71:37] Thank you. My name is David Jackson. Um, lot of discussion has been about the cost or the potential cost of resisting, um, Russia.

[71:48] I'd like to ask what would be the cost of not resisting Russia, in other words not just the message that it sends to Iran, but to China, to China's neighbors, to North Korea, and to democratizing former Soviet republics.

Elise: [72:10] Who wants to, you want to start Anders?

Anders: [72:12] Yeah, happy to do so. This is my very point. The alternative to severe sanctions that possibly can stop Putin is war. And, we are already seeing the war, uh, starting in Ukraine and there's no reaction in, neither in Europe, nor here. I find that extremely dangerous, and I think that we have a situation now, which is worse than after the summit between Khrushchev and Kennedy in Vienna in June 1961, which led Khrushchev to come to the conclusion that the US has no backbone under Kennedy.

[72:54] So, uh, it's time to put nuclear missiles on Cuba. This is worse, and it's collective for Europe and for the United States.

Elise: [73:06] Andrew, you want to take, quick?

Andrew: [73:08] I think it's, to my mind, hard to say that the Chinese, other major global powers are going to draw immediate lessons from what's going on in Ukraine.

[73:18] I think they all know as they study the situation that this is very complicated, that there's a lot of disunity, and that there is this underside reluctance to do something that leads to war.

[73:29] So, I think they kind of get that. I think there is a question about [inaudible 73:33] US leadership, US durability, and the security commitments we extend, and the desire of people to whom we extend [inaudible 73:40] to see them reinforced and reassured. So, I think that it's not surprising that you see the South Koreans, the Japanese, and others basically turn to United States and saying, "We see what's happening in Ukraine, please assure us that you have our security," and that you know [inaudible 73:55] the security guarantees that you have extended are meaningful.

[73:58] So, I would expect that that process is going to be ongoing regardless of who is in the White House.

Elise: [74:03] OK, we have time for just a couple more, sir.

Male Audience Member: [74:05] Thank you, my name is Mike Haltzel. I'm from Johns Hopkins SAIS Super Program, first a quick clarification on Finland.

p.28

[74:13] Finland's prime minister said three weeks ago Finland is not neutral, it's a member of the EU, which has a foreign policy and, and, he made it quite clear that if the EU would vote for sanctions, Finland would go along with sanctions.

[74:25] So, that's just a red herring. Tom, at the very last sentence you made in your initial presentation was, "We should find some way to accommodate Russia's interests."

[74:35] Isn't the real problem that Russia's real interest in the 21st century would be a democratic prosperous Ukraine with which it could trade and do all the normal things that democratic countries next to each other do, but we're talking about what Putin considers to be his interest, and as David Kramer said, his interest is to make it impossible for a real democracy much less a Slavic democracy on his doorstep to function.

[75:01] Isn't there, so my question is, isn't there a difference between what Russia's interest should be for the 21st century and what Mr. Putin's interest for his kleptocracy is.

[75:12] [claps]

Elise: [75:15] OK, Tom.

Thomas: [75:16] Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, we, we, again, we often know what other people want more than they do themselves. Uh, you know, we'd have to deal with Russia that, that it, uh, exists, uh, Putin happens to be leading that country. Uh, he enjoys a tremendous amount of public support.

[75:39] Now, how and why we can go into some discussion of that, uh, but, uh, you know it's not immediately obvious to me that Putin's foreign policy doesn't enjoy tremendous support within broad segments of the, the Russian political elite, the middle classes, uh, that we pay so much attention to, not to speak of broader segments of Russian society.

[76:05] Uh, so, that's what we have to, have to deal with. Uh, yes, I mean, uh, maybe a democratic society on their borders, why should they be opposed to that.

[76:15] But that's not what they see when they look at what, what is happening in Ukraine at this point. Uh, the Russian leadership, I think a broad segment of the Russian political class sees a, uh, a coup that was engineered, uh, by the west, uh, and they ask questions about how legitimate this is.

[76:36] Uh, is this what you're planning for Russia itself? Uh, so their problems of perception that we have to deal with, uh, and whenever we go about our own policy, we have to think through the eyes of the others, uh, and decide what we need to do in order to advance our interest.

[76:54] Uh, so, are where, is where we are now, where we wanted to be in Ukraine, is this the way we thought the process would unfold, is there something we overlooked that we should have dealt with or at least planned for so that we'd prepared or should we if we had known that some of these things were possible.

[77:12] Should we have articulated our own interest, pursued them in a somewhat

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different way, uh, and achieved a result that was more stable, more in our interest, uh, that didn't lead to the type of situation that we're facing right now.

Elise: [77:26] OK, um, you have two minutes, if you want to split it up completely.

Anders: [77:30] The problem in Ukraine is the Russian invasion. It started on the 27th of February, which was when the Ukrainian government was appointed. So, this is the problem.

[77:45] What remains totally unclear to me that is why, uh, Putin should ask Ukraine to accept all kinds of conditions that he does not allow at home such as freedom and democracy, and if Putin is as wonderful as you suggest that everybody thinks in Russia, why doesn't he allow them to speak for themselves and vote for themselves.

[78:12] Are you really standing out for Putin, the dictator?

Elise: [78:15] David, you want to just add quickly?

David: [78:17] I did and I forgot what I was going to say.

[78:21] [laughter]

David: [78:24] Damn, that's rare for me.

Elise: [78:26] Um, OK, I'm sorry we don't have time for a lot of questions. We have one more in the front, and then we're going to ask the debaters to, uh, offer a policy [inaudible 78:35]

David: [78:35] Oh, I remembered.

Woman 1: [78:36] Quickly, quickly.

[78:36] [laughter]

David: [78:37] Let's go back to, it was February 17th, I think a Monday. Putin announced the resumption of the $15 billion loan from Russia to Ukraine. The next day, the blood started flowing in the streets of Kiev.

[78:51] It strikes me as more than a coincidence that Putin suggested to Yanukovych, you want this money, go clear the streets, that's what happened, that's the kind of leader we're talking about in the Kremlin.

Elise: [79:02] Sir.

Male Audience Member: [79:03] Thank you very much, [inaudible 79:06] , McCain Institute, Next Generation Leader. Uh, I think it's largely very wrong to diminish this crisis to only as an crisis or conflict between Ukraine and Russia or Russia and Georgia, uh, or any particular country.

[79:23] I think it's much wider. This is crisis between the free world and the remnants of

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the empire of evil, and therefore, uh, also wrong is to, uh, start judging what or guessing what Putin wants.

[79:36] Uh, I think this debate should be and is about what we want. And under "we, which was quite eloquently defined by ambassador Volker in his recent CNN interview, we mean, I mean free world who stands behind the values.

[79:54] So, what do you think should be the, uh, values that we are prepared to, to defend while facing this brutal force, uh, and what are the consequences if we won't do it now.

Elise: [80:10] Andrew, you want to?

Andrew: [80:14] I'm not totally sure I hear the question. I think there's no doubt when you listen to president, you look at the steps the president has taken about where he stands and where his values are.

[80:24] And I think the question is the American people and what Tom said at the beginning, "Do people intend to have the ultimate sacrifice on behalf of Ukraine," and so far we haven't seen too many Americans who've said that....

Elise: [80:37] Well, but what he's saying is, "It shouldn't be only about on behalf of Ukraine. That if the US stands for universal values of freedom and human rights, should we not put it in these small terms, but should we be speaking on a larger that the US is standing up for its universal values of freedom and human rights and democracy, not just in Europe, but in the free world.

Andrew: [80:59] My impression is that's what we do, and that that's sort of the nature of being Americans and that's the nature of any administration that's in power.

[81:06] Um, so, I think what, what we're seeing right now is a really complicated situation and I think we're all very worried about escalation and we're all very worried about a war.

[81:16] So, for us to be strident or getting out there suggesting that there's a magic book solution at hand, I think would create expectations either among Ukrainians, that there's a defense commitment, which doesn't exist or that they're, they're just going to be cut loose.

[81:31] So, I think what the administration is trying to do and it's going to be really hard, we'll see what happens on Thursday in Geneva is can we get a diplomatic process going, and that, problems like this hopefully can be solved through diplomatic means. I'm not sure they can be in this case; I think we've gone pretty far.

Thomas: [81:47] I mean, the specific question is always what do you do in a specific case, and I think Andrew is absolutely right. I mean the United States for 240 years has sought to promote democracy, uh, in world affairs.

[82:00] I mean, the argument, for us, has always been "As a nation, how do you go about doing that?" Uh, what's the best way? How do you ensure that type of progress? Uh, and there have been different ways, uh, and different thoughts about how we would do that,

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historically.

[82:14] Specifically, uh, with Ukraine, the question is, again, "What are you prepared to do? How do you advance that?" And, I think, more important, at this point, what sacrifices are all of you prepared to make so that you see freedom succeed in Ukraine?

[82:30] Uh, because it isn't going to be without sacrifice. Uh, and it's going to be over the long term. It's not something that we're going to see an end to in the next several weeks.

Elise: [82:38] David, what do you think? And also, I mean, Andrew brought up these talks in, uh, in Geneva on Thursday. So, how do you think that should be approached?

David: [82:48] Well, just very quickly, on Tom's point, I can't remember the last time I bought a finished Russian product here in the US. They don't make anything I want. Um, so I'm not quite sure what sacrifices you're talking about.

[82:59] It's different for Europeans, with energy. Energy is a different issue, but there are ways of addressing that as well. Um, on Thursday, I, I, you know, I fear...Here we go in Geneva again.

[83:09] Um, Syria, Geneva negotiations worked really well. Um, I have zero hope that this is going to work out. And to not hit Russians with, with, the Kremlin with more sanctions before Thursday is an enormous mistake.

[83:23] Putin thinks he's winning. He has no interest in compromising, showing any, any room for negotiation. Uh, it's going to be an enormous waste of time with a Foreign Minister who has demonstrated he has zero influence over what's happening.

[83:36] He has no decision-making authority. He can't even get Putin on the phone, when he's meeting with John Kerry. So, uh, uh, it, it, it's a delay in taking steps that we should...If I could, I would ban the phrase "We are considering additional sanctions if Russia does..."

[83:50] [crosstalk]

Elise: [83:51] So you don't think it should be an, you don't think it should be an incremental approach. You think you should shock and awe.

David: [83:56] Whack the hell out of them.

Elise: [83:57] Whack 'em.

[83:58] [applause]

Elise: [83:59] OK. Whack 'em.

Thomas: [83:59] Can I [inaudible 83:59] just make a response to this thought?

Elise: [84:01] Just very quickly, please. We need to wrap up.

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Thomas: [84:03] I mean, yeah, very quickly, one word. What David is saying is that there's no sacrifice on our part, that this is easy. The argument that I'm making is that this is not easy, uh, that if you really believe in these things, it's long-term, and it's going to hit us. Uh, and it has to hit us. Uh, so that's what we have to think about.

[84:24] And in this specific case, the question is, "If you're President of the United States, what sacrifices are you going to ask the American people to make, for what purpose?"

Elise: [84:34] All right. We're going to; um...I'm going to wrap up now. I'm sorry we couldn't get to more of your questions. Obviously, this is a debate that will continue, and it could continue online at #MIDebateRussia.

[84:46] Um, I'm going to ask each of the participants to offer a one-minute, and I do mean one minute, because we're running late, uh, policy prescription, um, you know, summing up what we've talked about today.

[84:58] And, um, we have a few, uh, people that wrote in on Twitter, that you can think about some of these things in your answer. @melindaharing said, "What action should the US and EU take?" @BeccaSimpson, "What role does the UN Security Council have to play in the situation and for Russia at large?"

[85:15] And, and, um, you know, what are your...Tick off for us a couple of things that you think the US and, um, the West should be doing, um, to manage this crisis. Anders, why don't you start?

Anders: [85:27] Uh, well, [clears throat] I've already basically said it, but I think that the US should go for very tough financial sanctions. The US dominates global finance still. Russia has less than one percent of US trade, so it is a blip that nobody will notice, what happens to the US-Russia trade or the financial impact.

Elise: [85:53] OK. Thank you. Andrew.

Andrew: [85:55] Two things. Um, people have alluded to this beginning. We're at the beginning of this drama, and so everyone needs to be braced for this to go on for a long time and for the situation in Ukraine to remain very messy.

[86:07] So, we're not in 1989. This is something much murkier and much more complicated. And then, second, I don't believe that dialogue is inherently, uh, a magic bullet for this problem, but to shun dialogue and to basically say that there's nothing to talk about is a mistake.

Elise: [86:26] OK. Thank you. David.

David: [86:28] Uh, sanctions, sanctions, sanctions. Um, state-owned enterprises, banks, individuals, Sech...Uh, uh, Sechin, Miller, you name it. There's a long list. We can all put one together.

[86:41] Number two, yes, let's let Ukrainians decide their own future. It's a little hard to do when Russia has taken over part of their territory, when tens of thousands of troops are

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threatening further incursions.

[86:53] Um, let's not forget Crimea. The, the whole discussion and debate these days is about eastern and southern Ukraine, and we're treating Crimea as if it is...

Elise: [87:01] Gone.

David: [87:03] ...lost and forgotten. Huge mistake.

[87:06] As we did with the Baltic States, we never recognized their absorption by the Soviet Union. We should never give in to the position we've taken, which is we don't recognize the, uh, uh, referendum in Crimea. Um, we, we, should be doing everything we can to try to push Russia out of all of Ukraine, and I include Crimea in that.

[87:24] [applause]

Elise: [87:25] OK. Um, Tom, last word.

Thomas: [87:29] I think what we need is a clear statement by the President of the United States, what our interests are, uh, what sacrifices he's prepared to ask the American people to pay to pursue those interests.

[87:39] Uh, and then I would agree with Andrew that we need to open up channels, uh, that allow us to pursue the various ways that we can resolve this diplomatically, uh, even while, uh, the threat of, of further violence continues.

[87:53] Because at the end of the day, the solution will be diplomatic, uh, and we need to be creative in the way we do this, so that we find a, a way of optimally advancing our own interests.

Elise: [88:05] OK, um, I'm sorry we have to wrap it up there. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you to the McCain Institute and for our debaters, Andrew Weiss, Tom Graham, Tom Graham, David Kramer, and, uh, Anders Aslund. Thank you so much. Aslund. Thank you.

[88:21] [applause]

Ambassador Kurt: [88:27] And could we also just have one more round of applause for our fabulous moderator, Elise Labott?

[88:32] [applause]

Ambassador Kurt: [88:36] So this was, uh, the most recent in our series of debates. You can find it, again, on our website, mccaininstitute.org, on our YouTube channel, on our iTunes page.

[88:46] And, uh, if you like what we're doing as the McCain Institute, you'll also find a place there to find out how you can contribute and support the institute as well. Thank you all for coming.

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[88:55] [applause]

[88:57] [music]

Transcription by CastingWords