 In the first panel, the focus was on the Western European perspective on Polish-Russian dialogue. In the second one, we are going to talk about regional perspective. We have a very distinctive panelist here behind this table. I have a pleasure to welcome and introduce to you Michael Kozhan from Prague, Deputy Director of the Institute for International Relations, Czech Republic. We have a chance to hear Andreas Pruth, Director of Latvian Institute for International Affairs, Latvia. And we have enormous pleasure to hear Charles Gatti from Washington, D.C., but with Hungarian origin, let's say, and doubt of the very important books, Washington, Budapest and 1956 about Hungarian revolt, Hungarian uprising, the bloc that failed and Hungary and the Soviet bloc. Last but not least, I would like to inform you that in autumn of this year, a new book will going to appear called Zbik, the Stagecraft and Strategy of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Facebook and English on Zbigniew Brzezinski. And Charles is an editor and co-author of this book. So all of you are strongly recommended to follow the advertisement and go to the shops for the copy. You see, I did a little better than Kurt Walker. I asked him to do the advertisement for me. Charles served in the State Department as most of you probably know in the 90s and was one of the most determined and most effective advocates for NATO enlargement. So he, in some extent, was in the position to fight the argument that NATO enlargement would provide the harm for and including Poland and other countries of the region would provide the harm to West-Russia relations. So I expect to hear from him what are his own assessment of what has happened after the enlargement of NATO and how these relations between countries of the region and Russia have been developing since. And there is also very particular reasons I invited these three gentlemen to speak in the panel. They are not only my friends, which is what is obvious, of course, but they represent free neighbouring, let's say, nations to Poland which share some Polish experience of the relationship with Russia. They have or may have their own reasons to reconcile with Russia. Baltic states, Latvia, were invaded and then incorporated the Soviet Empire in 1939-1940. Hungary experienced Soviet intervention in 1956 when Hungary in aspirations for freedom were cracked down by brutal Soviet force and the Czechs experienced the same in 1968. I have an impression that all these three nations have very different approach towards shaping the relations with Russia today. They have very different experience with reconciliation with former empire. And the widespread in Russia wisdom says that they are far less orthophobic than the Poles are. So that's our main reasons why I decided to have these three gentlemen behind this table. And I would like to hear from them, first, about their own assessment of Polish-Russian dialogue. Second, how they countries shape the relations with Russia today? What's their approach towards, let's say, dialogue and understanding with Russia? And what, let's say, the impact of Polish-Russian relations for their own respective foreign policies? So now, three main questions to the panelists and I would like to give the floor to Michael Kozhan from Prague. Michael, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Slavic. It's a great honor to be here at the CSIS for me and this distinguished company and I'll try to do my best with the opportunity to share with you some Czech reflections on the issue that we are discussing here today. Even though I know that Czech Republic is not extremely interesting at this point, but I believe that the case kind of might bear some broader consequences. At the beginning I would like to draw or to share with you the view of how an analyst from the Czech Republic sees the current development with Russia. And first what I think is, from my point of view, needs to be said and then I will get to the Russian-Polish dialogue, is that there is a big fragmentation and incompatibility when it comes to articulation of a policy towards Russia and this fragmentation can be found on the transatlantic level and the European level of course, but very importantly on the central European level and extremely importantly there is a great incompatibility within the Czech Republic itself. And therefore the Czech Republic lacks some vision of what to do with Russia, but I will get to this. What is the second larger theme is that Russia is perceived by the Czechs as more and more a coherent and assertive and unpredictable partner to deal with. Third, there is a growing understanding in the Czech Republic and in the region I believe that the growing U.S. willingness to strike bilateral deals with Russia increases the Russian maneuver space in certain segments of central Europe. And fourth, it is clear, or that's the perception, that the relative U.S. withdrawal from Europe is closely watched by Russia with the argument that now when the United States are pulling off, we need to increase the security and political interdependence within Europe, between Russia and Europe. And I'm sure that you've seen the latest concept of Russian foreign policy which was signed by the Russian President in February 2013. This point is clearly there that Russia is poised to move closer to the West but to Europe and not to the United States. So this kind of a scenario is very worrying for central Europe. Therefore, how the Czech Republic perceives the Polish-Russian dialogue? I was trying to do some interviews with the politicians, with the diplomats, because at first I was not exactly sure if it's really followed that closely. And I was surprised that it is. And there are several reasons for that. First of all, the Czech Republic does not have the capacities, does not have the skills, the experiences, or, or neither, necessary incentives to establish such a dialogue with Russia. Second, the overall nature of the Czech foreign policy towards Russia tends to be very reactive, not proactive. And therefore it would be welcomed to see some proactive and permanent relations being developed in the region. Third, Poland is considered to be one of the two only strategic partners of the Czech Republic in Europe, the other one being Germany. And the level between the Czechs and Poles is unprecedented and unsurpassed in Europe, in the history. So if there is a dialogue being developed, then I believe that the Czech Republic would very much trust that this might work. Even though I'm not saying that the interests are the same, neither I'm suggesting that Poland should be responsible for the Czech foreign policy towards Russia. But what I'm saying is that this forum might have some broader implications. Which brings me to the central European level or dimension, especially the Visegrad group, which is a group consisting of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland. And even though that the Visegrad group is very coherent lately, is very cooperative, is very effective, there is zero interactions with Russia. And it seems to me that Russia likes it this way and it's not going to change in the foreseeable future. So it's important that the biggest of us is having this kind of a dialogue. Now let me move closer to the Czech Republic itself, which is maybe the case study of what is going on in central Europe when it comes to Russia. Things would be much easier if the Czech Republic was able to formulate and execute its own sound and coherent policy towards Russia. And I would like to say that there are even some comparative advantages that might put the Czech diplomacy in a better position than diplomacy of other countries. For example, the burdens of historical grievances and distrust is very much nonexistent when compared to the case of Poland or Hungary or the Baltic countries. Of course there was the invasion of Czechoslovakia, but then the Czech communists were very much involved and besides it was the Polish and Hungarian armies that were trying to liberate us too. And aside this, there is not much of a reason of being distrustful to Russia based on history. Furthermore, the Czech Republic does not border neither with Russia nor with the Eastern partnership countries, which again makes much more room for us to maneuver in many areas more freely. Also we're less dependent on energy imports from Russia than the other countries in the region. Yet for some reason the Czech policy towards Russia is very odd. First, in comparison with Poland again, there is very low political, academic, public and societal interest in Eastern Europe and in Russia in general. Second, and I'm not afraid to say that the 1990s were a completely lost decade from the Czech foreign policy point of view. We were completely obsessed with ignoring Russia and Eastern Europe and we very willingly bought into the Russian discourse of the relationship, which was basically about the Russian disagreement over the NATO enlargement. Third, and most importantly, and I will dwell a little bit upon this issue, is that the Czech Republic is deeply divided between those who somehow shared the dissident past and who see Russia very negatively, who perceive Russia as a security threat, who are very critical of the human rights and democracy tendencies these days. And then there is a huge gap, which is pretty much not filled by anyone except for career diplomats probably. And there are those who do not care about the internal development in Russia at all, who are very much willing, who are trying to pursue what was termed a pragmatic cooperation regardless of what is going on in Russia. And this is the group which is represented best by the ex-president Václav Klaus, by the current president Miloš Zeman. While the first group is kind of a heritage of the late president Václav Havel. This means that the Czech policy, that there is no policy at all. Because on the one hand, I know it's funny, but it's true, because on the one hand there is in the new Czech conception of foreign policy, there is this saying that we want to pursue pragmatic economic relations, which is good. And always when a president or prime minister travels to Russia, he brings a large suite of entrepreneurs. They even secure some important deals, for example modernization of the helicopters, some infrastructure constructions. But then again, there is another very influential group who is afraid of the Russian economic influence in the Czech Republic, who is pointing at the fact that there are 1700 companies, there is a lot of investments, banks, steel mills and etc. But the economic influence has a rapid ramification into the politics and into the policies. So there is no way of having a pragmatic economic relationship if there is this kind of a fear. Second, if the top executive face-to-face meeting are always extremely rosy, our president, he would never bring up a controversial issue. When President Medvedev was in Prague in December 2011, just after the elections, our president said, well, it's your election and we have no business to talk about it, it's your business and we're not going to talk about it. At the same time, there is very critical media, our minister of foreign affairs, Karol Schwarzenbeck, he never shied away from criticizing this policy. And the latest example is our prime minister who was in Moscow about a week or two weeks ago. And he was criticizing the Pussy Riot affair, but from the Moscow point of view. And at the same time, we have very critical discourse, which is, for example, translated into the dealing of the Czech Republic with NATO, still sticking to the NATO enlargement agenda, very assertive in the Russian-NATO dialogue. So what I'm trying to say is there is no way of executing a sound and coherent policy. This is bad for the Czech Republic from its own interests, but it is also bad for the reason that Europe and central Europe really needs to formulate some coherent policy towards Russia, and the Czech Republic is nowhere in the position to contribute to that debate. And Slavic also asked me to say a few words about what to do about these findings. Well, I don't know what to do. We have to play with the cards we have, right? If there is a fear that the politicians are kind of owned by the Russian mafia, and on the other hand, there are those who think that all the evil comes from Moscow, there is not much to do about it. But what I wanted to reflect, and that's how I would like to conclude, and I was glad to hear that this discussion kind of took off in the first panel, is that the Czech Republic is a good example of making a mistake of distinguishing between values and interests. From my point of view, it's wrong. First of all, value stems from interest, or interest stems from value. How can you distinguish between the two of them? It is always easier to deal on the most important security, economic, environmental, global trade, whatever issue you name it. It's always easier to deal with a country that shares your values. So it's impossible to say that we have to give in some values in order to deal on hard security matters, because if the values and the interests are kind of respectful to each other, then there is no distinction. And from my point of view, if we say that we put interest in front of values, then we're basically buying values of someone else, and this distinction doesn't work. The clear example for me is, and I was not talking about Russia in particular in this case, I was talking about our self-confidence, is that if we somehow accept the story, and it was told here too in the first panel, that we accept the story of the democratic movement is over, a story of the world of zero sum games, of the world of not multilateral but multi-polar, if we accept this notion, then I would like you once again to look at the Russian foreign policy concept, because this is precisely the world that Russian wants us to steer. I mean the current government, I'm not seeing Russians, I apologize for that. And it seems to me that foreign policy is, and I'm coming back to the Czech case, foreign policy is not only about expression of interest and values, but it's also expression of self-confidence or of lack of self-confidence and of fears. And if we accept this notion on the part of the Czech Republic, then I think we are expressing our fears and lack of self-confidence. Thank you. Thank you very much, Michael. The conclusion is that the Czech Republic does not have its own coherent policy towards Russia, due to the fact that there are various different conflicting with each other approaches, in the same time are important and taking into account within internal Czech debate about the foreign policy, generally speaking. We will come back to this point during the discussion. Now I would like to give the floor to Andris, and I would like to hear, let's say, the point of view of a Russian speaker. But I expect from you also some words concerning more general Baltic approach towards this particular problem we talk about today. Thank you, Slavomir. First, I must say thank you to Slavomir Heather for having me here. I am back to Washington almost every second month, and I am really happy to be back here. You collect frequencies. Yes, absolutely. I think I will learn some business play. It's pleasure, and I will start with Mikhail said that the Czech Republic, if I understood you correctly, it's not interesting in a sense. I think Latvia is very interesting, I must immediately say. It's a country which is joining, the only country which is joining the, what some would call, Titanic, Eurozone next year. We just been invited to start negotiations with OECD, together with Columbia, not only Sweden, but Estonia already are in. And just two days ago there were municipal elections, and allegedly pro-Russian party in a capital city received 60%. And we have the second term for a Russian mayor in Riga capital city. Actually, even in imperial times, or in Soviet times we didn't have a mayor which was ethnically Russian. So I think there are interesting developments on many fronts. If you ask me about the Baltics, I always, and I will start just a small disclaimer, I am always tempted to say this disclaimer because of course we are Baltic country, we are representing Baltics, but not to forget that Baltics are as well quite diverse. And not going into the details again, so let's say, Lithuanians are central Europeans, the Estonians are northern Europeans. And Latvians of course remain as the only Baltic country actually. And coming back what Janusz said, and already it's one of only things of course, which has been not the only, but I am exaggerating, but one of still the only things which has been uniting factor for the Baltic unity, Baltic perception, Baltic school, whatever Riga school some would call it. It's of course Russia. But even with Russia I come what Janusz said about pragmatism, just a small example. For Latvians pragmatism in the last years has meant to make, to improve political relations, so it serves as a good basis for intensifying business relations. In Estonian case, actually it's opposite. The pragmatism means not to engage in improving political relations because business pragmatically must solve their own business challenges. So you see that also how the pragmatism is being defined in the Baltic countries actually with regard to Russia is different. So that's why this is starting point that there are similarities, but same time of course there are differences. To the panel, the Polish-Russian, I don't want to use the word reconciliation, reset, re-engagement, reprimand, whatever you call it, but I think reconciliation is a more fundamental word. Or dialogue, or dialogue, absolutely, or dialogue. I think this panel what I noticed in the time table in the program is the longest one. So it means probably the most heaviest one, it's the central one. And actually it's probably even not by incident, by another accident in a sense. Why? Because if I would ask, one of the ideas is what kind of impact it has on the region. So I think that Polish-Russian dialogue, the strongest impact has exactly an East-Central Europe, whatever you call it, Central-East Europe. Now there is some new term, East-Central Europe, and of course also in Baltic countries. So I think it has been an important transformative game changer. I would not say that it's a geopolitical or geo-perceptual revolution, but I think in terms of geopolitics and regional dynamics, in terms of changing perceptions has been a very important element in the region. I would even refer to quite an old concept of overlay by Barry Buzan some 30 years ago. And he said that of course Europe was overlaid by the great powers during the Cold War, that basically all security dynamic within the region was frozen by the domination of those two superpowers. Of course the first unfreezer was exactly the end of the Cold War when the dynamic started. I would say the second unfreezer, the second game changer was becoming the EU and NATO members. Some would even say with EU and NATO membership we started to have normal foreign policy, because back in the 1990s it was adjusting fulfilling criteria of joining EU and NATO. Some would say exactly 2004 we start to behave as a normal foreign policy or defining the normal in a sense, the national interests. I would say the third one is exactly the Polish-Russian dialogue, because Poland played in a sense stabilizing role in the region with regard to Russia. Because it was always cautious whatever Cold War it is some would define or cautious code or distant pragmatism, but anyway so this was always in the cautious relationship with regard to Russia. And it has in a sense changed this cautiousness, there has been pro-activness and this of course has also had a contributing effect on the whole region. Not only is this one of course American and Russian reset as well, also economic recession. Economic recession also three factors have sort of made the last or third wave of re-changing, reshaping, unfreezing the overlay. That countries start to behave very much in a way how they perceive as important for national interest for sort of their own national vision. And you can see in the Baltics, already if you still speak about the region, you can see in the Baltics there is increasing competition in last decade among the Baltic countries, especially in economic domain. There is in a sense economization of foreign policies as well. There is a volatility of Polish-Lithuanian relations. I think we haven't mentioned this and I think it's very important factor of somehow the paradox with in a sense of scissors, while Polish-Russian relations are going up, the Polish-Lithuanian relations are going down. And is there a correlation? We may ask those questions of course, but I think we can observe that there is some dynamics within the region which was not observable before. Also, reconciliation of relations with Russia. And as I already mentioned there are a couple of pragmatisms, a couple of resets in the region as well. One of the resets was or is between Latvia and Russia. I would say more was than is because I think the recent year that there has been quite a challenging and complicated year for the Latvian-Russian relations. What is reasonable Latvia and Russia? A couple of just the symptoms or indications of this. Well, the Zatlov, Soviet president, 2010, the visit to Moscow. There was no the state visit before to Moscow by Latvian president. Back in 1994, it was signing the border agreement, but basically it was not a full state official visit by the state president. So 2010, the first time actually in Latvian-Russian history. The border agreement also signed in 2007, so that's why we can not also say that the Polish-Russian dialect has somehow always preceded the Russian-Latvian interaction because actually the border agreement already is the idea to sign the border agreement started immediately after joining EU and NATO and actually it was signed and ratified in 2007. Now you can also see an economic domain. Quite a positive relations. We have increasing numbers of trade volumes. Russia has become from somewhere around 5th-7th trading partner last year the second trading partner. And additionally to this northern distribution network, which is in a sense win-win the game for the region, the pan-European or pan-continental cooperative effort, I think also is an example of this intensifying relations. Even as an example I can also say that a couple of years ago the Latvian and Russian embassy organized an event here in Washington DC. So it was unimaginable some years ago. So it was combined effort as all in this regard. At the same time the historical football of course continues and this has very much come out in the last years, especially last year. The minority issue is on the table and in 2012 we had a referendum on a state language, Russian as a second state language. Of course it again you can say radicalized society and sort of perceptions and it brought out, you can see the ghosts of the past and ghosts of some concerns as well and distancing. Also the perceived risks of strategic economic presence that of course the Russian business comes with some routines, business practices which might influence as well political culture and political practices. So when I think these perceived risks are not always unjustified as well. So as Sikorsky and I just a couple of days ago he had his article on the foreign affairs on Polish foreign policy and he said the 20th century has been a roller coaster for the Poland. I would say that it's still a roller coaster for Latvian and Russian relations in the last years. So we have ups and downs as well and we had some ups a couple of years ago but I think now we have some downs as well. At the same time all this changing transformative regional environment has made some differences and some changes. First of all no regional consensus, there's diversity of concepts how to deal with Russia. There is no domestic consensus and I think to some it's already Mikhail said it's that how to deal with Russia if there was domestic consensus basically back in the 1990s so it's much less now and once more coming back to municipal elections actually many Latvians voted for this called pro-Russian party. It was not imaginable you can say some 10 years ago. So now it seems it's not anymore that important factor just ethnicity and let's say Russian factor as such. And also what James was mentioning there is also this certainly realisation strategic instrumentality I would call it. Relations with Russia for the Baltics and also for Latvia it's not just about relations with Russia it's about relations with our western partners. If you want to be like-minded, if you sort of want to establish security community, if you want to be perceived or we perceive that if you want to be perceived as like-minded and equal and mature and not anymore victimised we need to engage Russia in a strategic way as well. So there is certainly a strategic instrumentality behind it as well. And I'm coming gradually to the end of course there are even though there are some resemblances between these resets and engaging Russia of course there are also differences and differences very shortly between Russia and the Baltic countries and also Latvia of course it's asymmetries of size so it's very asymmetrical one. It's not really the equal of course it's unequal and it's very difficult I think for Russia especially to have equal partnership among absolutely unequal by size partners. There is what's difference from the Polish-Russian dialogue we have a big number of minorities. This is absolutely the different aspect and we have also historical factor. I think our historical factor it's much more difficult to change there's minorities, historical football, asymmetry size come together and again one month ago next to the victory monument which is monument for liberating Soviet Latvia in 1945 there were 200,000 people of Russian origin in Latvia. Of course this means that there is still a lot of tension and this is not just about interstate relations basically it's about two interstate relations between Russia with interstate relations and Latvia with interstate relations. And as a symptom of this and I sort of you asked me about the as well institutional one I think there is no commission for difficult matters even though some ideas had been sort of the promoters that we should also establish something similar as Poland has established. Actually resistance has been from both sides including from Latvian side as well because then the minority issue can be for instance put on the table on agenda. So that's why both sides are not their limits to engaging into the dialogue. We have intergovernmental commission, we call commission of historians. It has some minor achievements, access to archives but it's at the very end so I don't think so that we can have some breakthroughs. To conclude a couple of things there is impact of Polish-Russian dialogue. One thing that Poland has become indispensable to paraphrase and regional trendsetter and player in the region. There are positive things but there are also risks of inter-regional tensions. Polish-Listunian example is unfortunately one of the negative examples. There is also the positive things that I think it is also example of reflection of increased self-confidence that we feel after the EU and NATO membership more immune and more self-confidence that we can engage and we even need to engage. Last but not least of course very much will depend also what will happen within European Union and NATO and what will happen also in Russia because at the very end it's to tango as well. I think I will finish with this one and one probably last very shortly what to do. I think this theme was recurrent in my presentation already on a couple of occasions. I think that Poland is very good that you brought us Baltics and other people sort of in a wider dialogue because I think what Kurt was saying that they are some concerns that actually Polish-Russian relations might take place at expense of somebody else who is in between. That's why I think it's very important to have this wider framework of engagement. And the second thing is probably you need to establish also Difficult Matters Commission for Poland and Lithuania. Thank you. Thank you very much Andriy. So we have just heard an excellent analytically well balanced intervention concerning Latvian approach to relations with Russia and how Latvia sees Polish-Russian dialogue. And now we are going to move the thought and the floor goes to Charles Gatti. Charles, those are yours. Thank you very much. It's very nice to look out here from here and see so many old friends some with white hair like mine, some not including those at that time I was just looking at that table and there is Ross Johnson who played such an important role in U.S. policy towards Eastern Europe. There is Steve Larrabee who you mentioned NATO enlargement. There are few people in this city who played a more important role. There is Bob Norrick and I'm not going to go on from there. Thank you Heather for the invitation and it is wonderful to see former Foreign Minister Rothfeld a very old friend. We will not mention here when we met the first time but it was not yesterday for sure. Although I will borrow one of the things that you did see at the Polish Embassy yesterday but let me come to that. The reference and the implication here is that I could somehow speak on behalf of Hungary's policies that is very very difficult for at least two critically important reasons. One is that I am in complete opposition to the current Hungarian government's foreign and domestic policies so therefore please keep that in mind. I'm a critic. They say I'm an enemy. Actually last week George Soros preceded me as enemy number one with two other Hungarian-Hungarians in some article but for several years now I had the honor of being listed together with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by the way whom I had never met in my life but together we were preparing a conspiracy supposedly for the overthrow of the Hungarian government so please keep in mind that there is no way that I can be heard off or pretend to speak on behalf of this current Hungarian government but there is another reason for that a more complex one which is that I've been in this country now for more than 56 years and so for those who might not know I have had two American born wives not at the same time but just to be sure five American born children and ten American born grandchildren and one American born great-grandchild I'm pretty sure the number is... Congratulations. Thank you very much. Now I still believe that Hungarian food is the best food there is I do believe that the Hungarian musicians mathematicians, physicists among others are particularly gifted and talented and made a deep contribution but other than that I think I will have to claim that I speak here more as an American than as a Hungarian all the more so because you mentioned that I even worked at the State Department My initial plan was to divide my talk into two parts one is to make some comments on Polish-Russian relations and then talk about the possible impact of that or consequences or ramifications of that dialogue, relationship whatever we call it on the rest of Central Europe but last night you told me to add a third part which I was only too delighted to do which is to add my own conclusions to this and I can hardly wait to get to that point actually and it will take a few minutes Okay, so the first part has to do with Poland's opening to Russia I do consider that as I had occasion to write about this and to say it certainly publicly that I'm a great fan of this Polish government's opening to Russia and opening to Germany and generally Polish foreign policy I think the opening to Russia which of course precedes as Mr. Rothfeld correctly pointed out precedes this government and he made a contribution to that and Garamak made a contribution to that and Skubiszewski made a contribution to that so this has been going on for quite some time and yet the fruits of this probably it came to fruition to some extent only in recent years but thanks are due to many others I think this is a breakthrough I think what we have to talk about is the political how politically brave as well as wise this Polish government has been brave because domestically the basis was weak for this kind of approach after all Poland has had but the Polish people have had good reasons for many centuries to be so very suspicious of Russians and to overcome that is not exactly easy given the current Polish domestic political situation where you do have a right wing party full of old suspicions and unwilling to understand that the 21st century has arrived the key word here for those who know Polish I don't but this word I happen to know is Ukwad the constant thinking of conspiracies particularly coming from the Russians but coming also from Germans from Jews from Lithuanians for that matter and many others and that Poland is on its own it cannot integrate itself into the world because the enemies are all over well to overcome this and to say time has come to reconsider to be careful we have reason to be careful but still we have to approach both Russia and Germany in a different sort of way to overcome the Kaczynski phenomenon in this respect domestically is no small achievement and I think our friends who have participated in this obviously Prime Minister Tusk and Foreign Minister Sikorski in particular they deserve a lot of admiration for what they have done I will say some critical things too in just a moment but I wanted to start with the political courage here that they have had but this has also been very wise and very important policy for Poland the recognition that military conflict particularly one originating in Russia is most unlikely and after all keep in mind that even under communist rules when Poland asserted some kind of independence semi-independence or the people expressed some views contrary to communist dogma or Soviet policies the Russians, the Soviets excuse me, never interfered militarily never intervened militarily they would have had a reason you will know the date I just have to give you the dates think of 1956 think of 1970 think of maybe even 1968 who knows 1970, 1976 1981 and not once did a Soviet tank come in, almost but they didn't they were already present they were already present so they got their way by other means they did not of course they did, politically but it's one thing to get your way politically another thing is to intervene militarily so the question I think even though it's not likely that Polish politicians are going to say this publicly often the fact of the matter is if they did not intervene then would this, today's Russia intervene militarily in Central Europe to me, I mean they couldn't get their way, disgusting as their policy towards Georgia was they didn't they didn't even manage to do very well there this is not the same this is not the Soviet Union I think Professor Rothfeld made a comment about the domestic preoccupation of Russia, they had lost the outer empire in Eastern Europe they had lost the inner empire in the Soviet Union and their primary concern today is the loss of the Russian empire whether it is in Central Asia or whether it is, I'll take that back not Central Asia but Siberia of course and the Muslim areas I mean this is a country now on the verge of of the third biggest challenge and the question is can they overcome are they interested in invading Poland, so that was an editorial an analytic editorial here but it's against that background in part that Poland has been able to develop better relations with Russia but it could do so only because of NATO enlargement it could do so only because NATO is providing protection and because Polish diplomacy even going back to Olehowski another foreign minister I didn't mention before I remember when he came to the State Department in 93 demanding NATO enlargement at that point we were at partnership for peace if anybody still remembers that I know Steve Wood but others as well and I remember when he came in I can't imagine that it's a secret he came in to see the Secretary of State and he said he went like this and of course the Secretary of State had never seen anybody do this and said I demand an answer about the question is there going to be NATO enlargement or not or are we going to be stuck at this partnership for peace that nobody fully understood what it exactly was it really goes back to NATO enlargement Poland being a very good member of NATO but it also Russian opening could not have happened without EU backing and protection Poland officially at least has overcome Euroscepticism that the other countries in the region including the Czech Republic but especially Hungary could not do and of course Germany the way Tusk and Shikorski have done is a historical breakthrough of considerable significance and it is indeed should be mentioned together with German, French rapprochement so my conclusion here is that the Russian opening could not have happened without NATO without the European Union and without defeating the political mentality or at least for the time being the political mentality of Ukwad this conspiracy inspired nonsense that has been unfortunately a part of not only Polish history but of of the neighbors policies as well now has it had any impact on the other countries is the second question and I think not very much actually the Polish example has not been particularly influential unfortunately my view unfortunately we just heard that the Czechs are divided you know you have had Eurosceptics like Klaus there is Zamen who is a dubious character to put it mildly excuse me for saying that but I do remember articles when he was prime minister articles about how his chancellor was affected with Russian quote unquote businessman and others and Latvia we understand that with the huge Russian minority and perhaps for other reasons business certainly a lot of corruption Lithuania more and more corruption it's I can't I can't see another country in the region that is following the Polish example of being very open to Europe and with that backing gradually opening up to Russia as well the worst country in this respect I'm sorry to say is hungry that is moving away from Europe and towards the east it is even claiming to have discovered that historically it belongs to the east or it comes from the east despite the fact that the country's well spiritual founder 1100 years ago St. Stephen embraced western Christianity but now this is not totally forgotten but it is being played down and so Hungarian foreign policy not in words but in deeds is now a kind of bridge or perceived to be a bridge between east and west and relations with with the worst dictatorships in Central Central Asia have greatly improved if that's if that's the right word for that worse than that in the last three years the country's political culture has been reoriented towards the east and away from the west the prime minister speaks about the decline of west the decline of Europe and of course it's easy to criticize Brussels we all find fault there but this is a major effort that's been going on since the end of World War II and to dismiss it so lightly but in the very same speech where he speaks about the decline of Europe and of the west in the very same speech he would say that in 20 years though we will catch up with the European Union's average living standards and be happy ever after so there's a kind of also domesticism there looking inward that is also in other countries not much interest in foreign affairs as there is in Poland the foreign policy institutes never do anything elsewhere that is even slightly independent from the foreign ministry which finances it finances these institutes so I would say that in just one last sentence about Hungary is that aside from military cooperation within NATO which continues and which is not deeply harmed I would have to say that Hungary is no longer a reliable western ally and certainly Poland is and so are some of the others who are less interested in maintaining the pro-western orientation like Estonia for example is another example Slovenia perhaps my own conclusions then briefly I would say that I very much agree with Professor Rothfeld's comment last night at the Polish embassy where he towards the end of his talk he called attention to what we need to look for what is at least a research but certainly a political agenda which is that the issues are not only and perhaps not even mainly relations between and among nations in Europe but within within the countries of Europe and of the former Soviet Union I don't he did not have the time to develop this perhaps here he will but I think not citing him but myself but I think there is a huge problem with Russia above all and that is the initial momentum that offered at least the possibility of democracy there in the 1990s this has been reversed not just but this has been reversed Russia today certainly no democracy it is a dictatorship light perhaps or maybe not even so light and the but elsewhere in Europe this is spreading look at the news from Turkey extremely disturbing a news that's been happening Hungary is an electoral democracy there is a majority that was formed in free elections but majority rule has outwitted and suppressed minority rights and so I don't call it anymore a democracy maybe it's an illiberal democracy maybe it is it is something else so I think for these reasons it is extremely important that we pay attention to not just relations among countries in the region but relations within I realize this is difficult intervention in internal affairs and all that kind of stuff but the EU provides at least some possibility and perhaps even NATO to intervene in internal affairs to try to shape them the second personal comment I would make while what should then Poland or the EU or the US do under these circumstances I have to say and some of our Polish friends might not exactly like what I'm about to say I'm not surprised that the US or NATO are ineffective they may be concerned but ineffective they don't really know what to do the instruments of policy are missing here what do you do you can't send the tanks in so what economic sanctions well sure there are words but they seem not to make much difference on the key issue of what happens within these countries I am a little bit surprised about Polish inactivity well with respect to Hungary in particular and these are two countries with similar histories in many ways the languages are very different but friendship hundreds and hundreds of years there's considerable understanding of what's going on in Hungary in Poland whoever I talk to but the government pretends that there is no problem or there's nothing that can be done I don't believe this to be the case I understand the reasons for the silence and that's Kaczynski it's in one word it's domestic Polish politics and secondly perhaps because the EU's conservative blog they don't want to bring up the issue and lose Hungary's votes or the Fidesz party's votes but keep in mind Fidesz is not a conservative party it is a radical, populist, nationalist anti-European anti-integration party it has very little or nothing to do with conservatism as I understand to score Merkel or others to do it has some similarities with the British conservatives that is true but that's another issue I don't understand Poland because also because the virus the Hungarian virus may spread and it may encourage similar you have the basis for this in not only in Kaczynski but in Radio Maria and further to the right and I think some of our Polish friends are too comfortable assuming that the kind of sober centrist, good policies of the Tusk-Sikorski type that it will last forever it may, I hope it will but I'm not sure that it will well I think I've talked too long so I will just stop here by saying that I'm very much impressed by Polish-Russian relations I am at least as impressed by Polish-German relations I I'm sorry to report that as much as I can tell the impact of these very good steps and the strong support for the European Union this has not had sufficient resonance in Central and Eastern Europe including the Wieszegrad group thank you very much thank you very much Charles I'm sorry that I re-hungerized you for the purpose of this panel now we have 30 minutes for discussion I would like to open the floor for interventions from the audience for the questions and I will lose I'm going to use this opportunity that I'm moderator of this panel to raise the following question to the panelist there is a widespread view both in Russia and outside as well the main driver behind Russian interest in reconciliation with Poland were basically economic interest if we look at a map of Russian-European investitions we immediately realize that there is that Poland creates a very unique case Russian investitions flows everywhere but Poland one day I talked to one Russian official and he used the example of Latvia as an illustration of the thesis that Poland may learn something from a Latvian approach to Russian business and he said that Russians may easily go to Riga by the properties there they don't afraid much about kind of Russophobia so try to follow this way it could enhance interest inside Russian society in deepening reconciliation with Poland so my question is how do you perceive this Polish reluctance to Russian investitions is it a pragmatic approach or it is kind of it is being driven by well some of our historic simplifications what's your take on that of course the others are kindly invited to write the questions, comments to the panelists I'm not the only one okay I see here Hi Steve Szabo from the Transatlantic Academy here in Washington my friend Charles I wanted to thank you all for a great panel I wanted to go back to Charles' point about not worrying about Russian invasion which is true in the old sense but if we look at the role of Gazprom and the issue of whether we're dealing with a mafia state basically in Russia a lot of the panelists brought this issue out about the contrast between economic interest and values but I think Ann Applebaum had brought it out the point that the Russian strategy today is quite different it's basically to slowly corrupt and get acceptance of lower standards and to live with the kind of situation that we're looking at in Ukraine and in Russia so I'd like to get your comments to all of you and also whether you think the change in the energy environment is going to sort of undermine perhaps this potential that Russia has had in the past okay Adam Daniel Rotfeld yeah, well, microphone is coming first of all I would like to say that I'm impressed by all presentations in this panel and it happened that a few days ago that it was 22nd 23rd of May I took part in the conference organized in Moscow by the Minister of Defense about the European security the conference was a kind of the mixture of officials, ministers of of defense and some experts intellectuals but it was also presentation was given at the beginning by high officials of Russia a message from President Putin by Sergey Ivanov then Sergey Lavrov then Shoygu Minister of Defense all together it was a kind of the message given by the highest Russian officials towards Europeans and one element what was very interesting and I would like to say that I can repeat it because it was open a conference not behind the closed doors namely Sergey Lavrov Foreign Minister said that we are now confronted with the new partition of the sphere of interest in Europe and then in the discussion I said that it is very common thinking in Russia that everything already happened that in fact there is nothing new the sphere of interest it was the policy of metternich in Europe with the Holy Alliance and then in different ways it was after the First World War and continued in bipolar world after the Second World War but what happened now it seems to me that it is a kind of the challenge to all the governments not only to Russia that the power is diffused there are no centers of power people many many writers political writers spoke about unipolarity multi-polarity forgotten that polarity it is taken from physics and there are only two poles plus and minus they cannot be many minuses and many pluses in other words bipolarity is part of history we entered into the world of diffused centers of power it is like I would say that it is pluralistic world very heterogeneous and Russia is part of that world this is my point one that Russia should be and what Charles Gatti said very positive about the present Polish leadership Prime Minister Tusk and Minister Shikorski that in my view decisive was one sentence when Prime Minister Tusk took power one sentence he spoke about the world but about Russia he said and as far as Russia is concerned we are going to develop relations with Russia as it is in other words he offered them a promise that we are not going to change the system in Russia don't worry and that was in my view decisive because Russia is very much afraid of the change of system regime change which is I would say a kind of the light motive of the former Bush administration and it is continued it is I would say an explanation why Russia is for example reacting in Syria in that way in many other places in other words they are very much afraid that in fact Russia is in the center it is not my intention to continue I would like to say that as far as Polish-Hungarian relations in fact for the right wing in Poland Hungary is a kind of the model and it is officially the leader of the right wing declared that we will have Budapest in Warsaw I would like to say that for me it is a kind of the memory of what happened in 1956 exactly we wanted to prevent what happened in Budapest we wanted to prevent the Soviet tanks in Warsaw and to say now that it is I would say our dream to have Budapest in Warsaw it is exactly what people in Poland don't like but nevertheless I would like to say that Polish society is divided and it is divided in different there are different lines of division definitely nobody would like to introduce another line of division as far as Hungary is concerned in Poland and I would like to say that it is in my view and this is my last point what I would like to say that we have to think both the United States and in Europe how to define our strategy towards the non-democratic world in general and towards Russia especially there is no strategy and in my view this is I would say very serious problem there is no leadership, no strategy and the development is in the process of drifting and such a drift could be very dangerous. Thank you very much Thank you and I would like to give the floor to the panelist and then we will come back to the audience for the second round of questions, comments Charles Thank you I will be brief responding to Steve Zabo's comment that there are other types of Russian challenges or threats beyond the military and of course I fully agree with you and if I didn't say that then I understood that to be the case whether it is Gazprom or whether it is buying politicians corruption is very widespread in many countries including the Czech Republic etc etc so the Baltic states are full of stories coming out newspapers and elsewhere so I would say that yes there remains a Russian challenge but you don't you don't respond to these new challenges by missile defense you respond to that by engaging in precisely the kind of thing that Goldfeld mentioned which is the critical issue is except the term has a particular meaning in America it is democracy promotion not by military means as the Bush administration did in the Middle East but by all other means available to us including in the European Union and I don't believe that this has the kind of authority you were kind enough to mention NATO enlargement I remain a very strong supporter of what was done in the 1990s although I see that NATO politically has not been all that effective in so many places so I think it is on balance it was the right thing to do but I also see that some of the concerns that the critics are raising so I think NATO could be more usefully used for yes for democracy promotion after all both of these great organizations NATO and the European Union are meant to be for democracies I realize it wasn't always the case but that's what they are meant to be they meant to be for the democratic Commonwealth and if they are not democracies then they should leave or be kicked out but there is no mechanism for doing that Andrith? Thanks I think basically a couple of points because I think you asked also a couple of questions one is what is of interpretation why the Polish-Russian dialogue takes place and what are the motivating factors I would say in one word it's pragmatism from both sides namely the Russia starts to treat Poland I think as a player was in the European Union NATO and well, Britain is in special care according to the words of Radek Shikorski or at least is being advised to be put in special care and Poland is willing to take this place so of course Poland I think Poland starts to perceive itself as a player and also the other players within European Union and in a wider transatlantic space start to perceive Poland as a player and I think this has been one of the reasons for Russian willingness to engage also with Poland and I think the same is from opposite side and once more the strategic instrumentality that relations with Russia actually makes Poland to establish its foothold within European Union and NATO as a mature player as it was said I am not immediately I can say I am not immediately so optimistic about a long-term perspectives well probably from both perspective actually it is optimistic that there is some pessimism for Polish-Russian relations because as one of the Polish Polish diplomats informally said you know we have reset or we have reconciliation we have re-engagement for last 2-3-5 years but we have history of interaction for centuries and I think this is one historical background and second one structural geopolitical ones these are two countries which are engaging or which are searching they you can say they more influence in Europe or again in transatlantic space and if there is a willingness to find more influence so at some moment I think there might be also element of tension within the region be it Ukraine be it both countries be it the second point about Russia-Latvia which was mentioned as a good example well yes and no on the one hand I would say yes it's a good example because Latvia both the countries we are neighboring Russia and it means that somehow in terms of the transit someone say look Rotterdam is a German port the Benzpils-Origa is to some extent a Russian port and there is some structural you can say explanation to this and let's not exaggerate immediately some threats and concerns and risks but same time risks remain and it was I would fully agree with what was asked in a way the answer was given of course it is about exporting corruption, exporting routines, exporting the business practices and basically the business way of thinking I would not say that there is direct correlation more investments and more countries fall into the corruption indexes but I think there is some element of interlinkage is existing and as Transparency International was identifying that there are couple of countries where money is different than other money and it is China and Russia with some differences of course again how it's being done what is the methodology it might be discussed but I think there is some element of truth and you can see that it's not always politically connected it's not that for instance Latvia the financial system was shaken by two banking enterprises both of them are connected to Russia and actually none of them are connected today politically to Russian political establishment so it was to some extent shaken by the business practices speculative, non-transparent deals which have taken place in last decades so that's why the concerns or risks they are not directly politically connected with some Kremlin project who is sitting and sort of everything is coordinating energy is very important element in all of this I fully agree and the good thing is that from supplies in energy field the whole discourse the whole discussion and I think the center of the importance has moved to the liberalization of the markets because in terms of the supplies it's more and more interconnected and in case of Latvia or in case of both the countries we can increasingly speak that we are not any more energy islands but we are more energy peninsulas being more and more interconnected where as you can say European energy mainland liberalization, opening markets making them more transparent is very very important in this regard and in this case I think this will be the next the battleground between also EU and Russia as well what are the rules and you can see already the symptoms of this beating Lithuania, beating Latvia where are sticks and carrots also exploited and used the answer is I think simple in this case again we cannot avoid Russia and I would also say that Russia is indispensable energy supplies for the Baltics and for the region let's not say that we immediately can replace with a shale gas, the big hopes also within the Baltic countries it seems those hopes are being a little bit undermined by the recent experiences by the recent indications what's happening in the field I think important thing is to avoid the monopolistic domination and by, I would say Russian companies within different fields, be it financial be it energy, be it also transport sector I think this is an important element and at the very end as I say again and I think this is a good thing about the dialogue is that we should not search and blame Russia for all of this, actually it's a homework of those countries, it's a homework of the Baltic countries, Latvia it's a homework of east-central European countries, so that's the very end of the work and we should not look at this, and we should look at the problems and the problems we've always found within our own countries, but of course there is at same time interaction with those practices which somehow are being transported beyond the borders, thanks Michael? Yeah, thank you very much I need just one qualification to Professor Gatti, I'm also representing the I hope I was critical enough. To Slavic question about the investitions in Poland, maybe the Czech reflection would be that it seems to me that Poland doesn't get any of the central or Eastern European countries to invest into the strategic parts of Poland. It was definitely the Czech case that there were big interests to invest in a couple of your strategic companies. And for political reasons, you didn't let us to do that. Well, when we let the Pekka in Orland to buy the Czech Unipetrol, an important company, we now don't know who actually owns the Pekka in Orland exactly. So there is not reciprocity in this case. And then maybe a bit of a complex reflection on the other issues. When Mr. Minister Rotfeld was talking about the diffusion of power, I would go even further that the world will be not only with a diffusion of power, but also with a blurred and then shared sovereignty. And this brings me to the self-confidence of European model, because that's precisely the world that Europe can live very easily, because we know how to do shared sovereignty. And we know how to deal with diffused power. So I think that's not a worst case scenario for Europe and for central Europe, on the contrary. But the problem is that there is a leg of confidence in Europe recently. And if you said that it was Prime Minister Tuscuk who said to the Russian government that there will be a reconciliation because there will be no criticism of what is going on in Russia, quite frankly, I didn't know about that. But I think that's a failure, because that's precisely what is putting the interest before values. And that's the leg of confidence. And because this is precisely what Russia does. I mean, it's giving selective incentives. And if Professor Rotfeld was talking about the leg of strategy and leg of coherence. And I was talking about leg of coherence within the Czech Republic, within the region, within the EU. And if I ask who benefits from that leg of coherence, it's not central Europe. It's not the Czech Republic. It's Russia. So I think that there is a clear case of not shying away from defending the values that we stand for. And just to conclude, if Russia was on the pro-democratic path, which is not and was said a couple of times here, we would not be afraid of gas prom. We would not be afraid of being dependent on Russian energy. We would happily cooperate. We would not be afraid of, and Russia would not be afraid of overthrowing the Syrian government. So things that are in our deepest interests would be much easier to be dealt with. But if we will stop talking about values, then it will simply never happen. It will simply never happen. OK. I would like, Charles, please. May I have one more minute here, because first of all, my apology to Michael and your presentation and everybody in this room. What I would like to say, because there was a part of Steve Szabo's question that I did not respond to, which is that now that the energy situation is changing and gas proms maybe influences is in decline, does this mean that Russian influence with some politicians and some countries may also decline? Maybe so. Let's hope so. But I would like to mention that what the Russians do so very well is now, in contrast to the Soviet period, is not to lecture the Central East Europeans, while Americans are wonderful at telling everybody in the world, including the Central Europeans, what to do. And there is a considerable resentment. The Europeans do it too, but not quite to the same extent. So I would say that American lecturing, pontificating, and knowing everything better than they do has done a lot of harm to our credibility and to the cause of democracy actually there. Relatedly, the kinds of ambassadors that we send to some of these countries, which is a separate topic, and I would love to have an hour to discuss that, but I won't, is really just look at the Washington post today of who are we sending as ambassadors to these countries? Hollywood, Starlets, and others who have no idea where they are going, what the culture is, never been there, don't understand it, and usually actually don't even want to understand it. They just want to have the title after they return as ambassadors, so and so. And we have been doing this not to every country. Actually, Poland has been pretty well treated that way. But we have this habit like a banana republic sending political appointees there, irritating the leaders because they take it for what it is. They don't count, you see. We send these people there, these lightweights, and who go there and lecture them, and so on. So I think we could do a lot better in these countries despite of Russia or perhaps because the energy situation is modifying. I'm sorry I didn't respond to that question before. Thank you very much. We have already consumed all the time we have for this panel. And I have to, before I express my gratitude to distinguished panelists who did a great job behind the table, I would like to say the following thing. I would like to ask James Scherr, who was showing his willingness to raise the question to the panelists, to postpone his willingness and ask the same question during the third panel. And I would like to address the issue to Janusz Bugajski, who is going to moderate the third panel to give the floor to James Scherr as the first one. Now I would like to thank all the panelists for sharing with us their excellent, analytical, well-balanced, very inspiring thoughts. And I think that we learn all a lot from their analyzers. How this Polish-Russian discourse interferes in the region. Thank you very much, gentlemen. Now I have one additional announcement. I would like to please everyone to remain seated as we are going straight to the keynote, which is going to be delivered by Daniel Russell. And after this lunch on keynote, lunch will be going to be served. So please remain seated. And the keynote speaker is going to soon take the floor. Yeah. Oh, the panelists may change the seat. Ladies and gentlemen, if you could just take your seat, our keynote has arrived. We'll start in a moment. OK. Had a little transition there. Colleagues, I could not be more delighted to introduce a friend and a colleague who I've had the great pleasure of working with. Dan Russell is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State who has the great responsibility for US relations with Russia, Ukraine, Moldova, and Belarus. And he also deals with international security and arms control issues in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs at the State Department. Dan has a long and distinguished career in the Foreign Service. He has served as the Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. Bill Burns from 2008 to 2009, who's now Deputy Secretary. He then ably served Bill as Deputy Chief of Mission to Moscow from 2005 to 2008, and previously served as Deputy Chief of Mission in Almaty from 2000 to 2003. I asked Dan, and he was so gracious to accept, to offer some thoughts and reflections from the Washington perspective on Polish-Russian relations. He promised me on the elevator down he's going to be a little provocative. We celebrate government officials being provocative. And he's also very graciously agreed after his remarks to take a few questions and answers. And Dan, by way, this group has been engaging all morning in the positives, the challenges of the Polish-Russian relationship, what it's meant to the region. And so provocative you must be, because we've been provocative all morning. So with that, thank you again and welcome. Thanks, Heather. Maybe I'll be lazy and just sit down here. I'll try to make a few remarks to start. But I'm mindful of the fact you've had a pretty long day already. And certainly, the interaction is the best part of these events. So let me start with a few remarks. And thanks, Heather, for the kind introduction, hitting all the good stuff and none of the bad. And look, I congratulate you and CSIS for organizing this event to address a topic that I think is truly important to the entire transatlantic community and one that hasn't received as much attention as it really deserves. I couldn't resist an invitation to speak because of my longstanding interest in both Poland and Russia. I was a student in Krakow. So I've lived in Poland. And I've been a diplomat in Russia, both in Moscow and Yikaterinburg. So I think I have more than a passing acquaintance with both countries. And now in my current job, I find myself working with both Russians and Poles on the global issues that we all face. I've always been fascinated by the interplay between Poles and Russians and Americans. And looking back at our own Revolutionary War, Tata Kaszusko, of course, is the most famous Polish hero of our own revolution and pretty well known. But one thing that's, I think, less well known is that he befriended John Paul Jones, who was the most famous, I think, naval commander during our own Revolutionary War, who in fact went on to become a navy, a Russian admiral. So there are connections here. But that's probably left to some great dissertation of the future from some academic who's better qualified than I am. But getting back to the topic here of the day, I think the United States has a natural interest because Russia and Poland are both important to Americans and to American interests. Now that might be blindingly obvious, but I think it's worth talking a little bit about that. And I would say that none of us are naive about the relationship between Poland and Russia. It's a relationship that's been marked by literally centuries of conflict. It's one in which certainly mutual mistrust and mutual accusations have figured prominently. But at the same time, I can tell you from our own experience that those things add up to missed opportunities. And that's why it's worth taking a look at where we are. I think I would focus on the economic and security aspects of the relationship to sort of illustrate my point about the importance. Certainly, Russia and Poland both number today among the top 20 economies in the world. Both economies have shown significant growth, not only in terms of GDP, but in terms of per capita income. And they've outstripped most of their peers in recent years on both of those indicators. They also have a big trading relationship. Russia is Poland's largest trading partner outside of the EU, and I think number two actually to Germany and overall trade. But yet when you look at each country's relationship with the United States in terms of trade, you find that the numbers are a lot smaller than you'd expect for economies of that size. So certainly that provides a lot of opportunities for future growth and opportunities for Americans and American business and mutually advantageous trade investment. Russia and Poland are obviously playing important roles both in the region and on the global stage. And in many non-traditional areas and challenges that we face in the 21st century. And when I look ahead to this fall, I see that Poland is gonna host the COP 19 Climate Change Conference. Russia will host the G20 Summit. These are things that certainly no one would have expected 20 or 25 years ago. I think that beyond security, the security arena is certainly an area we need to look at as well. And Afghanistan is probably the best example there where Poland has been one of the largest contributors in terms of troops to ISAF. Russia has been the largest contributor in terms of transit rights for getting coalition military personnel and equipment back and forth to Afghanistan. And it's played a role in training and equipping Afghan forces, most notably in counter-narcotics training, which incidentally started as a NATO Russia project with the support of both Poland and the United States. Missile defense, when we look at what's a very controversial issue and one in which the United States thinks is important, you tend to circle back to these same two countries again. And that's no surprise. Poland has agreed to be the host of the Northern Interceptor site and the European phased adaptive approach. And the United States still hopes to involve Russia in missile defense cooperation as well. I mean, simply put, we feel that the European phased adaptive approach, together with missile defense cooperation with Russia, would make us all safer from the emerging ballistic missile threat that we see today from the Middle East. Again, a very 21st century way of trying to look at these issues. But my point is that there are benefits that outweigh the baggage in this relationship and there are benefits that certainly the United States can see. But you're always left with a question, why 20 years into the post-communist era are relations no better between these two countries than they are right now? And I think the answer is that the end of communism, despite one author's notes, was not the end of history. And there's a lot of baggage here. But it's not for lack of trying if you look back. Certainly President Yeltsin and President Vowenza in 1993 issued a joint statement during a landmark trip by Yeltsin to Warsaw that I remember well, that certainly was a big step towards reconciliation. In 2000, we saw monuments erected in Russia to the Polish officers murdered by Stalin. President Kwasniewski and President Putin each made reciprocal trips to each capital. So there's been a lot of work to try to make the relationship better. And I think in the plain tragedy in Smolensk, which I'm sure you've discussed and I won't review here, I think both there's been an attempt by both sides at the political level to take a very professional, very pragmatic approach and to not try to fuel the very real political passions on both sides of this. And I think that's a commendable way forward. So I think what we have is a picture that emerges of slow progress but over time pretty steady despite sporadic engagement and disengagement. And I think this is despite differences over, obviously Kaliningrad, Iskenders, Patriots and SM3s, missiles being a big part of some of the issues today. But I think the United States is gonna continue to support the process that we've seen between the two countries. And it's one that we think is the right thing to do. And I think I would offer a few suggestions on the way forward and what are they, obviously the areas that need work where relations could improve. The first to paraphrase President Clinton in his first election campaign, it's the economy stupid. Trade and investment can be a powerful catalyst to overcome differences. We've seen that in the past with other countries that have had frankly a relationship as rocky as Poland and in Russia. And mutual prosperity has a way of creating stakeholders in both countries to enable the relationship to whether the inevitable political ups and downs that you're gonna have. So that's an area that's obviously a fruitful one and Russia's accession to the world trade organization last year creates some more long-term opportunities in that vein. The second area I would argue going back to my first point is in the area of security. And in a relationship that's certainly been plagued by mutual mistrust, why transparency is something that should be addressed. And I'm talking about transparency in terms of planning, military moves, advance notification, military exercises on a reciprocal basis. And clearly this goes beyond the bilateral relationship. And here we'd be in many ways talking about a NATO-Russia relationship. And that's something fruitfully that Poland and Russia and the United States could push in the NATO-Russia Council. Because this would certainly help. And the third point I'd make is on engagement. There is simply no substitute for engagement. And I don't just mean on the government to government level, I mean at all levels. But when I looked at the tools to do this, I was pretty impressed actually on how many forums exist out there to actually pursue engagement. You have the Strategic Commission for Polish-Russian Cooperation at Foreign Minister's Chair. You've got the Klindengrad Triangle Talks, Parliamentary Dialogue, what we would call a Track 1.5 Dialogue in the Polish-Russia group for difficult issues. There are regular inter-parliamentary exchanges. There are youth exchanges through each country's Center for Dialogue and Understanding. So you got a lot of mechanisms in place to do more on this front. And we found that structures like this work pretty well. In fact, if you just look at the United States relationship with each of these countries, you'll see something similar. I mean, we have a Strategic Dialogue with Poland. We have an Interesting Democracy Dialogue with Poland, which is quite different than what we do with other countries. With Russia, we have a Bilateral Presidential Commission with over 20 working groups. So I think that structured engagement is certainly one of the ways to deal with a lot of this. And you can see some small successes in the relationship. And I'd look at last year's small border traffic agreement or local border traffic agreement as one of them helping to increase or make easier travel between Klinograd and Poland's northern provinces and hopefully spurring some economic activities there. So I'm not trying to minimize the very real issues that exist between the two countries, but I think it's easy to catalog what's wrong with the relationship. But as a diplomat, we don't get, I certainly don't get paid to simply identify problems. We're trying to look for creative ways forward. And certainly on a pragmatic basis, there's a case to be made for better relations between the two countries. And I see that as a very beneficial state of affairs for the United States and our own interests. Now in terms of our own role, I'm reminded after the Smolensk Aircraft Tragedy, I was at a meeting with the Polish Foreign Minister and Mrs. Clinton. And she complimented Minister Szczorski on the approach that Poland had taken to this and offered some support in trying to help with better relations. And I remember him looking at her saying, we've been working on this for a long time directly with Foreign Minister Lavrov and others. So which is a good sign that we can see a way ahead because the one thing I can be optimistic about is certainly the capabilities of the Poles and Russians who are clearly gonna be among the most successful peoples in this century. So why don't I just stop there and take questions? Dan, thank you so much. We really appreciate your reflections. And I'm gonna be very mindful of the time. We have about 10 minutes and I wanna collect a few questions. I know it's always tough when you come into the middle of a conversation, you don't quite get the benefit of our conversation earlier this morning. But I wanna pull you closer, if I may take the moderator's prerogative, to talk a little bit about what's going on internally to Russia, dynamics. Minister Altfeld gave a phenomenal keynote. Sort of talking about the importance of his working group on difficult matters was the role of civil society, of education, of media. Yet we see the constrictors of this role. And so as you're looking down the road, the two summits that will be coming up this month and then in September, as you're rethinking US policy, how big of a role does civil society, what's going on internally to Russia, domestic opposition, how does that play into your thinking? And if you could offer reflections on how that affects the dialogue towards the region. We're watching developments very closely and there's obviously a great expression of concern. Yeah, and I, having lived in Russia for seven years, and civil society is alive and well in Russia. And the mistaken idea that somehow this is all some, that civil society is some sort of politically motivated fifth column exercise that's completely funded and directed from abroad is just contrary to the reality in Russia. And I've been amazed at how many bloggers there are in Russia and the diversity of opinion that's out there. So I don't think that that's become a part of the Russian societal fabric and I don't think it's gonna go away no matter what the government does. We're very concerned by the unprecedented, I would say moves that we see against certainly a select group of actors on the civil society side. And I, like I said, I just think this is misplaced. And the idea somehow that a small group of people from outside would be able to direct the fate of Russia is just, it's a crazy notion. Russians are gonna be in charge of their own future and they're going to have people both in and out of government who are gonna do it. But certainly it's been a part of our dialogue and we're concerned about this. I'll take Cornelius and Yonish and then Suzanne back there and then we'll have you wrap up. Thank you very much. Cornelius Ochman, Bertelsmann Foundation, Germany. Mr. Russell, you mentioned the role of trade and economic relations. So the German-Russian or German-Polish economic development is excellent. The trade is higher than 80 billion euro with Russia and about 80 billion euro with Poland. At the same time the trade of US with Eastern Europe, I mean with Russia, with Poland, Ukraine and other countries is falling down. Could you tell us more about the strategy or is there a strategy, economic strategy for Eastern Europe, especially towards Russia in Washington? Do you want to take one or do you want to take a couple or do you want to answer one by one? However you want to do it. Maybe if we take a couple. And I'm gonna give you a piece of paper and I'm gonna give you a pen and you can, Yonish. Oh, right behind you. Hi, Dan. I'm Yana Spukajski. I have a question about US policy. We often hear from analysts in Europe's East as well as some government officials that there is no coherent US policy towards the region. For instance, even the relationship with Russia is driven by out of area interests, whether it's Syria, Iran, North Korea and so on and so forth. For example, they cite little commitment to further NATO enlargement, waning interest in transatlantic relations, little interest in democratization in Russia itself and seemingly little focus on the potential unrest in Russia that could culminate not only in potential disintegration but would have a spillover effect in the region that we thought was already consolidated in terms of its membership of Western institutions. How would you respond to that? That's... This is a tough crowd. Did I say that? Suzanne, why don't we let you go and then you can sum up, Dan. Suzanne Lotarski, former Commerce Department official for this region. You mentioned twice the smulling air crash. Unfortunately, it had not been discussed earlier. And it seems to me that perhaps here is an instance of failure of dialogue because I think if you take a look at it, both sides handling of it, both the Polish and the Russian side, unfortunately left too many issues and questions to be seized on as to what really went on and how it was happened and that somehow greater dialogue and cooperation in that period, difficulties it is under such circumstances might have yielded a better longer-term outcome for the Polish-Russian relationship and possibly for both sides internally. Well, on coming back to the trade investment question, I think in terms if you're looking at potential growth, Anders Oslin, who you probably know from Peterson Institute did an excellent study on the potential for growth in two-way trade and investment in connection with last year's debate on WTO and PNTR. And I think he's still done probably the best work on that. But what I took away from that study, I'm not an economist, is that certainly there is a lot of headroom here for growth. And if I look at examples that work, I'd probably cite Boeing's relationship with Russia where you have a truly proverbial win-win situation where Boeing has a large design bureau in Moscow. It sources a lot of its titanium from the Urals. It uses all of this material and brain power to build planes and Russia is one of the biggest markets for those planes. So that's certainly an example, if you like, a pilot project in some ways of what's possible. I don't, look, the U.S.-Russia relationship is never going to have an economic relationship that looks like Russia and Germany. But it can still, there's no way to go but up. And I think if you look at the energy relationships, the deal between ExxonMobil and Rosneft with Exxon being interested in developing the Arctic with Rosneft being interested in investing in Texas. This is such a different scenario than what we saw during the Cold War. That gives me hope for optimism, but ultimately it'll be up to the private sector or the private sector and some of the actors in Russia to see how far they take this relationship. But I think the potential's there. On the bigger question of U.S. policy, I remember, I'm like you all, I'm a Europeanist and I look at my world through those eyes. And our approach has been that going back to President Bush, the elder, the idea of a Europe whole free in a piece, in my mind is unfinished business. And that Europe whole free in a piece, obviously always included Russia. And that's something we want to see. And we've certainly, since I get the joy of dealing with part of the former Soviet Union, certainly the backsliding on democracy in Ukraine, has been very troubling as well. We've got issues in Belarus. Moldova finally has a government and is the poster child of at least one of the countries moving in the right direction. But I think that we can't ignore the unfinished business there. We need to continue to focus on this. And yes, we have new challenges as many of our European friends would argue that are gonna require a lot of resources in the Middle East and in North Africa. But we need to do this all at once. And granted, none of this has gone as quickly as we would have liked and progress is not linear. But I think we share the same vision of Poland and certainly some of the other countries in the region on where we want to see this go. So I think we're gonna have to continue to do this. And I know there, I remember quite well a lot of central Europeans being very disappointed certainly during the first Obama administration with the policy, which some of us, me included found a little puzzling because the relationship was naturally going to change. These countries had joined the European Union and NATO and become full partners with the United States and members of the transatlantic community and naturally that relationship was gonna change. I wouldn't wanna go back to the focus that we had and the challenges that we had in the 90s. I regard that as a success story. But you're right to flag this and you're right that it deserves more attention. On Smolensk, this is gonna be I think an issue that's out there for a while. And you're certainly right that things could have gone better but maybe I've worked too long in this part of the world but they could have gone a hell of a lot worse. And I think it is encouraging that both sides did make an effort and continue to make an effort. It's not something that's completely done yet but it's gonna be one of those issues that certainly is gonna require more attention if you're gonna get past some of the historic issues between the two countries. Please join me in thanking Dan for stopping by sharing some thoughts and we're gonna watch very closely in two and a half weeks when Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin meet in Northern Ireland. So thank you so much, Dan. Thank you.