 Well, good afternoon. I'm Professor John Jackson and it's my pleasure to serve as the coordinator for the issues in National Security Lecture Series and as your emcee for today's event. For anyone just joining us, I want to reiterate that this series was originally conceived as a way to share a portion of the Naval War College's academic experience with the spouses and significant others of our student body. In the years over the past four years, it has been restructured to include participation by the entire Naval War College extended family to include members of the Naval War College Foundation, international sponsors, civilian employees and colleagues throughout the Naval Station Newport. We will be offering 15 additional lectures between now and May of 2021 spaced about two weeks apart. An announcement detailing the dates, topics and speakers of each lecture has been posted by our public affairs office. Each event will consist of three parts the scholarly speakers presentation, a question and answer period, and then a brief pause before we proceed to the family discussion group session. This final segment is a primary interest to family members residing here in Newport, and it will feature guest speakers from various support activities and organizations here on base. Okay, enough background and admin. Let's now proceed to the main event. This afternoon, we are pleased to welcome Dr. Sarah C. M. Payne to speak about why Russia lost the Cold War. Some have argued that Ronald Reagan won the Cold War, but recent research suggests a more complicated story. Together we will explore both what others did to the Russians and what the Russians did to themselves. Sarah C. M. Payne is the William S. Sims University Professor of History and Grand Strategy in the Strategy and Policy Department of the U.S. Naval War College. Her degrees include ABA and Latin American Studies from Harvard and MIA from Columbia University, certificates from both the East Asian and Russian Institutes, and MA and Russian from Middlebury College, and a PhD in History from Columbia University. She is the author of numerous award-winning books and articles, and is one of the college's best known scholars and most popular lecturers. As a reminder, during the formal presentation, please submit any questions you may have using the Zoom chat function. Dr. Payne, over to you. Okay, I'll try to share my screen. Okay, does that look good? So, John, is my screen shared properly? Yes, we see that at the top of your slides are cut off. All right, how about, is that better? That's much better. Okay, so now I'm off and launching. Thank you very much for that warm introduction. It's a real pleasure to be here. And my purpose is to fold. First, I'm going to give you the promised lecture on why Russia lost the Cold War, but also I'm going to give you a little window on the curriculum that goes on at the War College. This used to be part of the senior level course. And one of the most valuable parts of that curriculum for the strategy and policy department is the counter argument of anticipating your smartest critic and how you counter their argument to what your idea of how the world works. So today I'm going to give you a tour of the counter arguments and for those of you who haven't taken either SMW or S&P, this might be helpful. And some would argue and answer this question, why Russia lose the Cold War, they say Ronald Reagan, he won the Cold War. Except this picture looks a little cordial for all of that the Gorbachev's and Reagan's look awfully friendly. But anyway, Reagan was a man of words and deeds. He made memorable speeches. And here's one he made before Parliament in 1982. The regimes planted by totalitarianism have had more than 30 years to establish their legitimacy, but none, not one regime has yet been able to risk free elections. Regimes planted by bannets do not take root. And then a little bit later here he is in Berlin, standing before the Brandenburg Gate, then a locked gate on the Berlin Wall, but long a symbol of German greatness. And he calls out General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, tear down this wall. And who can forget the evil Empire speech that he gave in Orlando, Florida to the National Association of Evangelical Christians, who gave up a day in Disneyland to hear it. Reagan was also a man of deeds. There had been a military buildup that had bung on under Carter in response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but Reagan really increased that. He also did very aggressive patrolling of the Soviet Union, and he funded anti-communist groups wherever he could. And the Soviets took the bait, and they matched the United States symmetrically of dollar for dollar on this big defense buildup. Beware of symmetric strategies. The Soviet economy was one seventh that of the combined Western and Japanese economies, and it was bankrupting at the time the CIA estimated that the military was taking up about 20% of the Soviet budget. After the Cold War, they thought maybe it was 40 to 50% or possibly up to 70, 75% if you took into account all of the infrastructure and the military industrial complex that went with it. Beware that in comparison, the military share of the US budget was less than 8%, Japan less than 2%, even Nazi Germany, it was at 55% expensive. So Russians have thought very deeply about what happened to their country, not only how they lost the Cold War, but how they lost the Empire and indeed life as they knew it. In the afternoon, I'm going to be quoting a whole variety of Russians so that you get their take on it. And here you have Valentin Fallin, who was the Soviet ambassador to Germany. And he said, look, the American strategy of our exhaustion in the arms race, it produced this crisis in public health education, you name it. And then because the Soviet Union had all these tensions with China had to spend money in that direction, the arms race plunged the Soviet economy into a permanent crisis. Meanwhile, Reagan is busy funding anti-Soviet movements, most particularly in Afghanistan. And here you have Georgiy Abatov, he was the top Soviet expert on the United States. And he said it was quite clear that the Afghan war was most advantageous for the United States. We got our Vietnam and we began to understand this. So here's Gorbachev telling the Politburo in the spring of 1986, the Americans are betting precisely on the fact that the Soviet Union is afraid of Reagan's missile defense. That is why they're putting pressure on us to exhaust us. Correct. So someone made the argument that the United States victory in the arms race guaranteed victory in the Cold War. Go Reagan, that's one explanation. But I'm going to give you a whole other set of external explanations of what others did to the Soviet Union. And then I'll move on to internal ones and what it did to itself and some overarching ones. And I'm going to start for the external explanations with Presidents Ford and Carter. So those who disagree that it was all Reagan's handiwork, another group of people could argue, no, no, no. It has to do with what happened under Ford and Carter. The Soviets for years had wanted to hold a European wide conference to confirm their expanded borders as a result of World War Two. And for a long time, the Western Europeans were uninterested. But after a while in the 70s, they were sick of all the drama and they were wanted to hold the meeting. The United States was still not very interested, but we went anyway and this produces a 1975 Helsinki Accord. Now the United States insists that it include a whole variety of human rights provisions. Didn't think they were important, knew the Soviets wouldn't enforce them, but stuck them in there along with the Europeans. Well, unbeknownst to the United States. Dissidents throughout the Eastern Bloc and human rights activists in the West ever more vocally began demanding that the communists live up to the promise of liberation. That communism is supposed to deliver versus the democracy that actually is what they produce. And this dissident movement took on a life of its own within the Eastern Bloc. And here you have Robert Gates, who was eventually the head of the CIA and then the head of the DoD, said the Soviets desperately wanted this meeting. And it laid the foundations for the end of their empire. We resisted it for years. Only discover years later that it had benefits beyond our wildest imagination. Go figure. So some would argue that Jimmy Carter's human rights campaign was incredibly successful. Because it resonated most profoundly among the Eastern Europeans who were denied the political rights that he emphasized and here is his commencement address at Notre Dame in 1977 where he said, We have reaffirmed America's commitment to human rights as our fundamental tenant of our foreign policy or draws Americans together is a belief in human freedom. We want the world to know that our nation stands for more than just financial prosperity. We're bigger than that. Pavel Palashenko, who was Gorbachev's English language translator, thought Carter's human rights campaign was really important. Because by emphasizing these rights, it led Russians, particularly elites in the positions of power to think, yeah, their country needed to be more open, more humane and more democratic. And here you have Foreign Minister Shevronadze talking to the Communist Party members at his foreign ministry in 1990. He goes, the belief that we are a great country is deeply ingrained in me. But great in what? Size, people, arms problems, lack of rights. And what do we who have virtually the highest infant mortality rate in our planet take pride. It is not easy answering the questions. Who are you? Who do you want to be a country which is feared or a country which is respected, a country of power or a country of kindness? So, if you look at what other Russians thought about this, you have the Russian journalist Vitaliy Nektenko saying, look, the Soviet Union just didn't make it because of this undemocratic ideology. And Alia Grinevsky, a Soviet career diplomat, is making a parallel comment that Communist ideology is associated above all with the Soviet Union. It's rejection created this vacuum, which determined its ultimate fate. And then you have Buddy Sielson, who is Gorbachev's successor, who said no one wants a new Soviet Union, right? And they invented it. So, some would argue that it's the human rights clauses of the Helsinki Courts and Carter's subsequent human rights campaign that destroyed the Communist belief and communism. And that's why the Cold War ended the way it did. Another president, another counterargument. Others would argue that all the rest of this is nonsense. The real story is that Nixon played the China card. Others would argue that Mao played the America card. Either way, in this really quite dangerous border war in 1969, the Soviets approached the United States government and said, would it be okay if we nuke them? And the United States said, no way. It would not be okay if you nuke them. And Mao got it. The one that wants to nuke you is the primary adversary. And great minds think alike, and Nixon and Mao both wanted to cooperate with each other to bring down the Soviet Union. And a result of China's animosity, Russia had to militarize its very long border with China with these fully mechanized nuclear armed forces. Well, imagine if the United States had to do that with our long Mexican and Canadian borders. It would be bankrupting and the Soviet economy was a fraction of ours. So this spelled all kinds of trouble for Russia of strategic overextension. So some would argue that U.S. cooperation with China, fatally overextended the Soviet Union, and that was that. All right, one could make an umbrella explanation out of all of this discussion of presidents to say from Nixon through Reagan, each successive president president. President, excuse me, opened up opera opportunities for succeeding presidents so that you start with Nixon. He plays a China card which subsequent presidents play ever more deftly. And then you get forward with the Helsinki Accords and then Carter is going to open that aperture. And then Carter begins the military buildup that Ronald Reagan finishes. And together, this allows the United States to deal with the Soviet Union from a position of ideological and military strength. For those of you who think that U.S. farm policy is inconsistent, at least until terribly recently, it was relentlessly consistent for the duration of the 20th century in the initial decade of this one. Political parties, both Democrats and Republicans agreed that the central objectives of our farm policy was free trade democracy and get rid of the communists. It was just agreement on those subjects. So you could make a counter argument that the presence Nixon through Reagan produced the cumulative presidential effects to defeat the Soviet Union and that's the real explanation. Others would say forget about all these, these individuals, the real key was this military platform, the submarines. Why, because the Soviet Union was put on a very dangerous first strike posture because it believed it could not guarantee a second strike. And what happened is under President Carter, a graduate of Annapolis and Submariner. We started having a very aggressive submarine policy where we were patrolling outside of their sub bastions. And the Soviets didn't think they would be able to get off a second strike. So here are some Soviet comments about this Marshall Yazov said for them the Americans the main means for atomic attack is the fleet. And then you've got Bolden here, a big longtime aide to Gorbachev saying the most powerful strength of the United States is its navy and Russia can't get one of those. He can't afford it in its geographical position is not great to deploy one in more time. So here you have Marshall Akhrameyev who would commit suicide at the demise of the Soviet Union. He was in the United States in 1987 and he told his host, we're surrounded. And that's why we're concerned. We know you know where our submarines are and we don't know where yours are. You, you, the United States Navy are the problem. No Navy. Admiral Trost his host said that really the inability of the Soviet Union to maintain its defensive capability and to match the US Naval force. Ronald Reagan with six ships short of a 600 ship Navy that the Soviet Union just couldn't do this and this tank their economy. So someone argued the United the the Soviet Union could not counter technologically or financially the US submarine threat to its retaliatory nuclear forces. So war termination was the only solution for them. Okay, these are all naval explanations naval spelled with an e ie staring at one's own. They're all about when the United States did or didn't do the education at the Naval War College is supposed to open students horizons to think more deeply about the other side. What are Soviet goals, limitations, etc. And when you get to reading Klausowitz our big guru on conventional warfare, he emphasizes the interaction of war warfare. It's not just one side and the other side's a potted plant there's an interaction going on and you need to understand understand the other side deeply. So now I'm going to turn to a variety of internal explanations and here's Arnold 20 be one of the greatest historians of the 20th century who argued that civilizations died from suicide, not by murder. And the external explanations of the murder, what other people did to the Soviet Union, whereas the suicide are the things that they did to themselves. And here is internal explanation, number one, which is the Soviet Union didn't collapse because it lost the Cold War it's because its empire collapse collapse that did it in. And the West had been all worried about the so called domino theory for most of the Cold War the ideas one country fell to communism. Oh my goodness, all of them would fall. Turns out the domino theory actually applied to the communists, because once there were Democrat demonstrations for democracy in one Warsaw Pact country, the infection spread to the others. And their leaders no longer had the stomach for the kind of violence it would take to retain power and it just busted the Warsaw Pact. Indeed, demonstrations began throughout they were throughout Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union from 98 to 99. They were in the Soviet Union, their people were demonstrating for freedom and in Eastern Europe people are demonstrating for freedom from the Soviet Union. And the people are really taken with Gorbachev's idea of glossnest openness and stroika economic restructuring. Very uncharacteristically the Soviet Union did not intervene militarily in these demonstrations rather Gorbachev encouraged both political and economic reforms because these countries were facing not only political unrest, but also crumbling economies. And the reforms began in Poland, Poland had long been a scene of successions of unrest in 1980 81 workers hit the streets and they formed solidarity which became nationally and internationally known organization it was the only independent bubbling up from the bottom opposition organization in Eastern Europe period. And then the polls get themselves the government gets itself into an even worse problem in 1987 the economy. The living standards have declined by over 3% and the proceeding five or six years and the government is in a real economic bind it raises food prices on February 1 1988. And the workers hit the street and the government is so afraid its economy is going to go into free fall. So it offers the illegal labor organization solidarity a place at the bargaining table and there's a little complicating factor in Poland which is the Roman Catholic Church, an institution of enormous legitimacy and a partiality for solidarity and a pope at that time, who was Polish. So the government offers solidarity the deal is if you call off the demonstrations that are the strikes that are crippling and already a crippling crippled economy will bring you into these political talks and solidarity agreed and a year later. They convene what become known as around table talks in February 1989. And the Soviets are all for this they provide some advice the polls say look you're an itty bitty little country. When you make mistakes are going to be itty bitty mistakes so you go first will learn from you. But if we make mistakes. They're going to be really really big and with serious consequences got that one right. And if you think about as these talks are going on. And the elections are a wind up being held in June. And the Communist Party thinks that it's got the laws sufficiently rigged that they're going to be okay think about this is happening in June, literally the day of the elections is the day that Deng Xiaoping in China decides he's had enough of his demonstrations. And he sends the tanks in and just kills tens of thousands of demonstrators doing that. By the way, the communists are still in power in China, the polls take a different route, but undenounced to the Polish Communist Party which they thought they'd rigged it solidarity wins every single seat for which it could compete. And for those party designated seats solidarity organized voters to check the box called none of the above, which they did. And it just destroyed the legitimacy of the Polish Communist Party and real elections were on their way. Four months later, equivalent demonstrations break out all over East Germany. And it's about the time of the 40th anniversary of East Germany, and the Germans don't send out the tanks. Here's Leipzig 70,000 demonstrators are out and about. And within a week you have over one in a third million Germans demonstrating in 210 places. Again, demanding democracy, no tanks sent in. Why? The Germans here had already been canned in mid October, because it was his ruinous economic policies that had wrecked the economy. He was living off of debt and spending and money that he didn't have, but the alternative would have reduced East German standards of living by 30%. And well, the Ponzi scheme eventually ran its course. So Honecker's out. November 7th the Council of Ministers resigns. The next day the Politburo resigns and then what's left of the government the next day announces new travel regulations, but it doesn't say when they're going to go infect or how they're going to be enforced will enter fog friction and chance. This guy, Gunter Shabowski, East German Party, Communist Party official, he's holding a news conference about asked about the travel regulations. And instead of admitting he didn't know the answer to the question, he winged it. And he said, ah, these travel regulations, they are enforceable. They're, they're, they're happening right now. Well, crowds of East Germans headed off to all the six gates on the wall of the of Berlin. And the border guards had a choice of just killing all these people, or opening the gates, which is what one of them did. One set of border guards, they opened the gates and the crowd poured into East into West Berlin. And a pivotal decision had been made a pivotal decision like the elections in Poland means there's no going back to the way they were. Things were within the week, 9 million East Germans visited the West that's over half the population and within the month. There were 1% of the population emigrated to the West. And here's good old Gunter Shabowski gone. Gee whiz, we never had a clue that opening the wall was the beginning of the end of us. Ah ha. So, some, the Russians apparently were very surprised. Many members of Gorbachev's administration at this kind of reaction among the satellites to Soviet rule. We have this parliamentarian and scientists who's got a good sense of humor, Yuri Rizov saying all of our former satellites by compulsion cast off from us as fast and as far as possible. And they have Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Kovlyov saying, and there was no confidence whatsoever that if the East Germany armies out there and their Russians in the room, it's unclear who they're going to shoot us or the demonstrators. They're saying for the Poles and the Hungarians. Well, great. If you have allies like this, who needs any enemies. So, some would argue that unrest in the Empire forced the Soviets to forfeit the Cold War. Okay, another possibility say look, the reason why the Russians lost the Cold War has nothing to do with any of this other stuff. It would have been fine if the satellites had been healthy, which they weren't. And so if you're going to make this argument, look at the world around 1960. And look at all those tempting green places. They're all about to become independent and they're really, really sick of Western colonizers and enter the Soviet Union with an eradication plan for the West and there were many takers. They went forward to the 1980s with all of those pink places. And wow, the Soviet Union was on a roll. Except here's the hitch. In the mid 70s on there was a global recession that meant that such allies were much more expensive to have commodity prices tanked including oil, which is a big spending. That's a big source of Soviet revenues, but it also meant the exports of the Soviet buddies here. They're their value a tank and therefore they needed all kinds of extra money and this really hurt Angola, South Yemen, Nicaragua and other places. And oh, don't they sound familiar. Yeah, these countries are still a mess from their dalliance with communism. So Russia could ill afford these non performing pals. And the problem gets worse, because at the same time, Russia's own nationalities had had enough of this crumbling economy and they want independence and the problem is they want independence all at once. And the Russia can't doesn't have enough troops to deploy to all these places at once. And the unrest and the among the nationalities have begun in 8485 with student unrest and Eucudia, which is in the Far East and Kazakhstan, which is in the south middle. And by the time you get to the late 80s, there are ethnic hotspots wanting out in about 70 plus places. So some could argue this Soviet Union bankrupt itself in the third world while ignoring its own internal third world of nationalities who simultaneous revolts down the empire and forced it to forfeit the Cold War. Here's a completely different explanation. The problem with the Soviet Union wasn't any of this political stuff. It was all about the economy. That was the problem. And if you look at Soviet economic statistics, they did pretty well in the in the 50s as they're recovering from World War Two, but things get really bad, particularly in the 70s and 80s, so that by the time for the decade proceeding when Gorbachev came to power in 1985, Soviet growth rates for from one to 2% less than the United States for this, this proceeding decade and the compounding effects of that are really, really significant. And then it gets better because Russia's a communist society, everybody's lying to each other. In order for subunits to get their inputs in order to produce things, they had to lie to everybody about what they had on store, etc. Or they'd never get their inputs or people take them away from each other. And therefore, no one in the Soviet Union either the subunits who are actually producing things or the government had good macroeconomic data on labor, capital, what are the value of inputs, what are the consumers actually want. As a result, everyone was grossly misallocating labor and capital, but unaware that they were doing so, until it had metastasized into a crisis. Bad news. And here you can look at what happened to Gorbachev, he comes in at 85 and just look at his economy here, it takes the big nose dive, and it doesn't bottom out to 1998. While Gorbachev is in power, you know, a trade deficit taking off a budget deficit, internal debt and GMP growth goes double digit negative, a total mess. And here you have Marshall Yaza saying, look, we simply lack the power to oppose all of these flourishing NATO powers, we had to find an alternative to the arms race. Anatoly Atomishin, who was a Foreign Service officer, argued that Russia's crisis began with the departure from self isolation, that the economy, Soviet economy was literally exhausted from the monstrous arms race militarism enemies with half the world. And here you have Gorbachev telling the Central Committee, we are encircled not by invincible armies, but by superior economies and he repeatedly said that living this way any longer is impossible. So some would argue, hey, the Soviet army, the Soviet economy, excuse me, lost the Cold War. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote a very, very famous book about the fall of the French monarchy and then the ensuing French Revolution and he said that the most dangerous moment for a bad government is when it begins to reform and of course that's what happens under Gorbachev. And people of all political persuasions in Russia agree that Gorbachev's role was pivotal. And Gorbachev made a number of incorrect assumptions and one of them is that history is always forward to communism, never backwards to capitalism. And here you have the KGB head of foreign intel saying the thought never occurred to him that it's possible to withdraw from socialism that of course is exactly what the Eastern Europeans did. Gorbachev also misjudged the sentiments of the neighbors. He thought that the clock began on his watch and people would appreciate his role in liberating Eastern Europe. Well, for Eastern Europeans, the clock started a lot long time ago under Stalin when he occupied them and shot their governments and other people. So here you have Anatoly Chenaya, foreign policy advisor to Gorbachev who's saying, Gorbachev thought that bringing freedom to the Eastern European satellites would lead them to adopt socialism with a human face. He made an enormous mistake, but because these countries brutally turned their backs on us. Oh really? If this is brutal, what pray tell was Stalin? And Chenaya continued the politics and connection with our former friends were totally unexpected for us. Really? Invade their country, shoot their leaders, replace their governments, siphon off their resources and then refuse to lead and you're wondering why they don't like you? The United States intervenes in civil war is the world over. And then we dump in billions of dollars of aid evenly and people don't like us. I don't see why the Russians think they're so special. A third false assumption. Gorbachev believed that if the war saw pact is all then surely NATO would solve. And that if the Comic Con and that's the Soviet trading organization within the Eastern Bloc, if that thing was no more, then the European community, the predecessor of the European Union would be no more. He didn't get it. Things organizations by compulsion and those that people want to be in dissolve for different reasons. And there was a fourth saw for a incorrect assumption. Gorbachev assumed the United States would take a continental powers very dim view on strong powers, strong independent powers. If you're continental power you really don't want a strong neighbor on the border you want to divide in half or something smaller. And so he figured the United States would want to divide in Germany, and that would be okay so he goes off for vacation, while all those Eastern European strikes are taking place poor life choice, because at that very moment. Chancellor Cole of West Germany and President Bush in the United States were coordinating and how to create to reunify Germany make it fully sovereign and fully in NATO. Other members of Gorbachev's entourage people had supported them later blamed him they said look, he made these foreign policy mistakes or function of it is domestic policy mistakes and they led the whole Soviet Union to collapse. And as Vlaizimir Lukin, an expert in the United States said Gorbachev was no dungshelping and then you have girl are bought off the big expert in the United States, who attributed to the stupidity of the leaders, angry man about all of that. So someone argue with suicide by mistake the big bozo was playing with pack plastic bags and stuck one on his head. Well, Lukin continued his observations about all this and he said in the West they love Gorbachev because everything took place so easily, easily and cheaply basically that way, but only for you for us it was expensive. And I will give you another explanation that it has nothing to do with Gorbachev sins of commission of all the mistakes he made, but rather it's a sin of omission about what the Red Army didn't do. But after was all over there were officers who said we should have done the Tiananmen solution just send in the tank tanks blow people away, and that would have solved things. So someone argue that TTD, an acronym I created just for you timely tank deployments would have changed the outcome of the soul of the Cold War. Others would say no no no, the problem isn't about Gorbachev leadership or the military's leadership it's about this guy's leadership. And that person was Gorbachev successor and he did two things. He amended the Constitution in 1990, which removed the Communist Party's leading role, which meant that all sorts of other parties could compete and get rid of it. And then he, Gila Russia and Ukraine signed the Biala Biala Bozha Accords in 1991, and that dissolved the Soviet Union formally, and this allowed the nationalities to flee the lease and the leash and the Soviet Union was no more so other people blame him. So if that if that's what you believe it was suicide on purpose. I'm not going to give you a couple of umbrella explanations one of them is the reason is why the Soviet Union lose it's because of all of the above is inevitable such a mass. The opposite answer to this question is no no no it took all of the above the best the West where a barely one in one the Cold War so I'm going to start with all of the above, you could argue that the Soviet Union had so many problems. It was just a matter of time before it tanked, and it does the cumulative mess was too much for it to survive so the whole thing is inevitable. And there are people who believe this Yuri Rizhov who is truly is a rocket scientist. He said look it's the rottenness of the system that's why it went down and here's a journalist, Japan off who says look I think that the genes of this disintegration were contained in the genetics of this governmental political formation. Don't you love communist pros don't ever write like that in your papers. So, according to this way of looking things the Soviet Union was destined to lose. Others would take the opposite view it's not quite so not so fast that basically it took the confluence of all of these events to win the war Cold War on Western terms and this is what Deputy Foreign Minister cover the office set thought. Thus, all factors merge internal ideological economic military in order to end the Cold War to arrange for the Cold War's funeral feast in other words the West barely one if you believe this one. Another one takes a twist on that one and says, not only do you need all the factors, but you needed the simultaneous. Probably having these two gentlemen on an office helmet Cole of West Germany and George Bush of the United States to conduct successful Cold War termination. If you look at Bush seniors CV, it's incredible he's one of the most probably one of the most qualified people to ever occupy the presidency. That is an incredibly young veteran of World War two, and he just keeps on moving he's the US representative to China when they're opening relations director of CIA VP for eight years. He's an amazing man, as is his German counterpart, Chancellor call who was the longest serving Chancellor in Germany, since his illustrious predecessor, autophon Bismarck, and the two of them worked out cold war termination without the East Germans love to travel. And while West Germans could had long been able to travel to East Germany East Germans had not been easily able to travel to West Germany why, because they have it had a habit of staying. And in the late 80s, more of them were allowed to travel, and you might ask why and the answer would be money, because Cole decided to win the cold war by buying up each tourist one at a time. And what he did as our whole series of transactions to get these people out. So in 88 East Germany eases eases travel trends restrictions and then West Germany pays them half a billion Deutsch marks for the privilege. And then later, later in 1989, hungry opens its border to Austria right Austria is not part of the Eastern bloc so if Eastern, East Germans can get to Austria their home freight to get out of the communist clock. And West Germany gives hungry a half a billion Deutsch marks. And then in November of 89 coal offers his 10 point unification program, and also pays the Soviet Union $100 million in food in a crumbling crumbling economy that really needed food. But the demonstrations just kept continuing and putting the pressure on. And this is when Cole and Bush decide they're going to fast track reunification why they're afraid that Gorbachev is going to about to fall from power because of the spiraling economic and political crisis. And they have to finish things off before that happens. But there's certain problems with this. So Gorbachev is absolutely against having Germany in NATO, let alone having a unified Germany in NATO State Department experts want to go slow. This guy Hans Dietrich Genscher, who's the foreign minister is really skeptical about Germany joining NATO and he's terrible why because he belongs to a different political party from Chancellor Cole and therefore cannot be fired. And the French and the British are deeply fearful of German unification so push and cold have a division of tasks. He's busy reassuring the Soviet Union and cutting them checks. And he's working out a financial unification. Communists are clueless about finance. That's what got them into all the trouble. And they're thinking we have to worry about military problems. Well, wrong instrument of national power. This is not going to be a military unification of Germany. It's going to be financial and it goes right under the Soviet radar. Meanwhile, Bush is working the diplomacy with the western allies. He's going to delay a bunch of previously scheduled meetings as long as possible so that events in Germany progress as far as possible why because he doesn't want particularly France and Britain to get in the way of reunification. And both of them are playing Bush and Cole are running a tag team diplomacy this so fast Gorbachev can't keep up with it. So in February of 1990 Gorbachev agrees to unification. Here comes the big money. Cole promises 5 billion George Marx, then Gorbachev agrees that states can choose their alliances, i.e. whether or not to join NATO. And this is when the US offers nine assurances and concludes a trade agreement that Gorbachev really wanted. And then you get in 19 July the German Economic Union goes into effect. And this is the unification by stealth. It's going to take money out of the East Germans hands because it's the Deutsche Mark that that comes from West Germany. That's going to be the currency for both of them. And then you get the London declaration inviting Eastern European countries to start forming warmer relations with NATO. And if this is in return, the G summit G7 summit agrees to study rapid rapidly get going with aid for the Soviet Union. So then you get Gorbachev agreeing to Germany, a unified Germany within NATO membership, but in return, Germany confirms its borders with Poland, and Germany pays 15 billion in aid to so Deutsche Mark aid to the Soviet Union. And he pays for all kinds of housing for these repatriated Soviet soldiers. Why you may ask, he doesn't want them running a coup against Gorbachev when they get home put them in a really fancy apartment building they'll be busy buying furniture. And in 1990, in September 1990, the treaty on German unification goes is signed. The Polish border is a big deal. Why because Stalin moved Poland way to the west and it took up a third of what would have been formerly German, a third of what had been the size of Germany before it's not the normal thing to do to a country. As a result, there have been I think 10 or 12 million refugees to a million of whom died. They didn't survive the trend of leaving Poland. And so this is a big deal that the Germans agreed to these new borders. But a month and a half before the unification treaty is signed good old Saddam invades Kuwait. And this is a real problem, because Iraq is a very important Soviet ally that owes them 10 to $13 million. That's a lot of money for the Soviet Union, which is broke. And it becomes Oh, now what do we do you don't want to tank call Cold War termination over this little event. So Gorbachev is cooperating with the United States. He sends his special envoy, you have getting Primochov and three trips to bag down the first one. Primochov secures a release of 3000 Soviet hostages the next trip he gets all Western girls released and the third trip he isn't so lucky he's there for the bombing. But imagine the US bombing campaign. If with every bomb, human shields go down with it. Well, Russia takes this off the table. And here's their thinking about it. This is Sergei Tatysenko is an age of Foreign Minister Chevrona. He said, look, we knew the United States was going to be doing something about Kuwait. So we wanted to funnel it through the UN. Why, because the Soviet Union has the ability to veto on the UN. And there was a division of roles he said when the Americans asked us to work with the Chinese we told them same thing. Are you going to be better off running things through the UN we've got veto or not and oh by the way you can extract some concessions for not vetoing which is what the Chinese did. And then you have Anatoly Kovlyov, the Deputy Foreign Minister is saying look, what I told the Americans essentially is stay out of Iraq by all means liberate Kuwait, but you're not going to cross this line. So for those who wonder why the United States stops the first Gulf War at the 100 hour mark, this is yet because to do so would have alienated the Russians and might have derailed termination of the Cold War. And for those who think Saddam was was the prize. No, he wasn't. He's not a prize. He's a piece of work. The prize is winning the Cold War on Western terms and not going behind beyond the coming for a point of victory to a tank all of this. That might have pleased Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher or President Francois Mitterrand, why they neither one of them wanted to unify Germany because it would relegate their own countries to a secondary status in Europe. Francois Mitterrand eventually came around and he became really essential in negotiating the Maastricht Treaty, which puts together the European Union, combining Eastern and Western Europe together, and plays a very creative role on that. Margaret Thatcher never came around. She was arguing Germany will be the Japan of Europe but worse than Japan. I guess she hadn't been to Japan lately. The Germans will get in peace what Hitler couldn't get more and her plan was to leave Soviet troops in Germany indefinitely. Well, imagine if that were the case, right? Dealing with this wonderful piece of work, right? We're lucky today that another great Chancellor of Germany, Angela Merkel, has a country that is large enough to deal with the likes of Russia as it goes crazy taking Ukraine and threatening the Baltic states. So it's lucky that that did not happen. So Bush promised Cole that when the whole war was at this time that I won't beat my chest and dance on the Berlin Wall. Both of them agree they weren't going to humiliate Gorbachev. And also beyond humiliating him taking credit for doing such a masterful job terminating the Cold War. Why? Because it would have probably led to Gorbachev's overthrow even earlier and also it would have led to an earlier accession to power of the hardliners, which wouldn't take place for another two days, two decades under Putin. And this bought Eastern Europe two decades when the Soviet Union's not bothering them two decades for the glue to set as they integrate themselves politically, economically and militarily with the West. So for Bush it was no crowing and it was also no second term. He was defeated in 1992 and the last Soviet troops would not leave East Germany until 1994. But Bush is going to go down as a great president for what his work on terminating the Cold War. But as Anatoly Atomishin argued about who ended the Cold War, it's difficult to deny that the Soviet Union was the one to end it. And Edwin Meese who was a counselor to Ronald Reagan and also his attorney generally said look the Cold War began because of the Soviet policies and it ended in a sense because of Soviet policies. You see here pictured Gorbachev receiving the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for his liberation of Eastern Europe. So when you all are thinking about the question why did Russia lose the Cold War? I hope that you will come up with a more complicated answer than Ronald Reagan did it all by his his lonesome. So that concludes what I have to say for you all. And I think I've successfully unshared my screen and let me know if there are any glitches there. Nope, I think we are good. Sally that was a very quick trip through something we could spend years studying, I'm sure. So we only have time for a couple of questions. Let me pass at least a few of them to you. First, to what extent do you think modern Russia has learned the lessons of USSR's downfall? Oh, absolutely. And China's learned them too. They both learned them. Putin is trying to re-put together the empire. Of course he doesn't understand economics. That seems to be a continuity in Russia. But he's busily trying to reinvent the empire. And he's not about political reforms and openness, which is what Gorbachev was all about. And then China's looked at it and they analyzed it very extensively. And one lesson is, forget about the political stuff, just stick to economic reforms. And another one is about nationalities. Russia had all these separate nationalities. China's in the process of homogenizing them, which helps explain the genocide that's going on to Uyghurs. Over. Very good. Another question, what is the risk of a future Russia-China block challenging the U.S. and NATO by 2035? Highly unlikely because, yes, if you act like Adolf Hitler, you can glue together the most unlikely alliance of Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt, if you really apply your cards badly. But really, China and Russia are their own major enemies. They have this long border. They dislike each other intensely. Russia is scared stiff that the Chinese are going to take a good part of Siberia. And most recently, I think with the Sino-Indian border issues, Russia has been siding with India, providing military equipment, which is sending the Chinese orbiting. They don't like this. So they're both into negative sum worlds, which is all about, you'll notice that Russia and China don't have allies really. And it's because they're, it's always about taking things from other people. And what the beauty of the West is if you have functioning economies and economic growth, you can have a positive sum alliance system where everybody is making money and interesting in enforcing the rules that everyone benefits from. So I don't think you have to worry long term about Sino-Russian alliance. In the library, if it ever reopens, I've written a co-author of my husband, a China textbook that discusses all this in detail that they have pretty awful relations historically. Over. Very good. Another question. To what extent can similarities be drawn between USR economic difficulties and US's issues with a huge national debt? Oh, I think for those in the military, military power is a function of economic power. If you don't have an underlying economy, you're going to have problems sending, you're going to have problems financing your military. And what gets a lot of third world countries into trouble, they have small economies, they have ambitious foreign policy agendas, and then they blow all kinds of money on the military. And it just, it precludes economic growth. And it's a problem for them. In fact, China did quite well for many years under Deng Xiaoping focusing on all these economic reforms and making money, increasing the size of the economy. But Xi Jinping is busy killing the goose that glade the golden egg. In our own country, we need to stop hating each other and get together and work on fixing our economy. We have Americans right now who are hungry, children. It is incredible in our country. And we're squabbling with each other instead of getting together and getting the kids fed. There's something wrong with us and we need to fix it. And being mean to each other is not the answer. Very good. Are there lessons that can be learned to help China implode? Is there anything we can do to move them in a direction that perhaps would lessen their power? I don't think you want China to implode because it just becomes a bigger mess. What you want China to do is gradually to reform. And obviously it's not in that frame of mind. And this is what the beauty of containment is. It's what the beauty of alliances are. It's the beauty of all the wonderful international officers who come to the war, the Naval War College, they represent the global system of rules-based international relations. And I think the answer is working to strengthen our allies, ourselves. China is an instant alliance maker. We should be helping. Already there's more cooperation among Japan, India, Australia, us, Vietnamese to be in on that. And more international organizations in Asia to help hold the peace. And you're going to have to wait out the Chinese. It is too big for us to shape and make them do much of anything. So put up the blast shield. They don't get to trade on equal terms if they're busy doing cyber attacks and stealing all of our stuff. And work on fixing ourselves. If we don't fix ourselves, that is the absolutely number one thing. Fix the United States. Then work with our allies and try to set up a blast shield around China. And then they're so busy destroying themselves. They have so many problems. It is incredible. It's not going well for them, deservedly so. Over. Well, an interesting comment here says, what an engaging marathon through history, your spoonful of sugar delivery makes the history go down. I think that's a tribute to. Oh, Mary Poppins. That's it. Any last minute comments that you'd like to share before we wrap up. Oh, take advantage of your wonderful education at the war college. You have such terrific classmates, colleagues, spouses, the works, take advantage of it all. I know it's hard in this. We're all locked up environment, but you can do zoom things with each other and just take advantage of it all and understand that you own the faculty. All of us are an email away and just email us we and after you graduate email us where we're around for you. So it's been a pleasure being with you and happy figuring out all sorts of good things that John Jackson's got up his sleeve for you. Thank you, Sally.