 To CSIS, my name is Andrew Kutchins, and I'm director of the Russia and Eurasia program here. And it's a great pleasure to welcome Fyodor Lukyanov, today who will be speaking, on the very timely topic with Russian elections coming up on Sunday and a new president inaugurated in May. The end of the post-Soviet period in Russian foreign policy, what is next? This lecture today is the second in a series of talks sponsored by the Russian balance sheet project, which is a collaboration between the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, and the New Economic School in Moscow. And more personally with Sergei Guryev at the New Economic School, Anders Oslin at the Peterson Institute, and myself, co-directing the project. I want to take a moment to thank the sponsors for the project, which include Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Chevron, Caterpillar, and I'd like to give special thanks to Alkoa who provided funding, especially to make this speaker series possible. Fyodor Lukyanov, our speaker today, is the editor-in-chief, founding editor-chief of Russia and Global Affairs, Russia's most prestigious international affairs journal, which has a collaborative relationship with foreign affairs here. It was founded in 2002, and he has made enormous contributions to this journal, making Russia's most authoritative source of expert opinion on Russian foreign policy and global issues. He has an extensive background in different Russian and international media, where he worked from 1990 to 2002. And as a commentator in international affairs, he often contributes to various media in the United States, Europe, in China. Indeed, Fyodor is one of Russia's most insightful, authoritative, and prolific, I would say commentators and writers, not only on Russian foreign policy, but on international affairs more generally. And in fact, some of you probably saw that one of his articles recently published, I think in Rio Novosti, was republished in the Russia Now version of the Washington Post today. Fyodor is also a member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and Independent Organization, providing foreign policy expertise in Moscow and around the world. And he's a member of the Presidential Council on Human Rights and Civic Society Institutions. And he holds a degree in Germanic languages from Moscow State University. So the topic again today is extremely timely, and Fyodor, I'm delighted to welcome you here to the Washington. So let me turn the podium over to you. Thank you very much, Andy. Thank you all who came to this event. It's a big honor and a big pleasure for me to be here, because timing is really exceptional. Frankly, when we discussed this event, my visit to Washington to CSIS, I didn't realize that I will be here just three days or two days before elections. And I got it here, so this understanding. And of course, this election is much more interesting than previous ones, not because of result, which we more or less know already, but the atmosphere is different, the mood of society is different, and change is expected, not immediately after election, but certainly in months and years to come, because Russia is at it again. Unfortunately, we need to say it again and again at the crossroad, and we will need to choose path for the future. And next President, whose name we will learn on Monday, will face enormous task to actually to revisit, to redefine Russian identity, political identity in world affairs, for various reasons which I try to address. Also, it's very interesting to be here these days, because being very much jet-lacked and waking up half past four or five in the morning, I watch American television and I follow with great interest the current primary battle between Santorum and Romney. And that's very interesting to compare how political machines are working here and in Russia, especially given that fact that many events organized now by Vladimir Putin's campaign, which are, many of them are rather anti-American in substance, but the form is entirely American, and he, for example, yesterday or today, it was on Thursday, today's gathering of Putin's supporters and his speech was staged exactly as an American election convention, so it's as a replica, so it's another interesting detail about our love and hate relationship. So, Vladimir Putin helped me very much to prepare this introduction because his last article, last article in series of pre-election statements was published on Monday in Moscow's Kinovesti newspaper and it was just dedicated to foreign policy. This article contained no sensations, but I think it was extremely interesting in a way that we can understand Putin's worldview from this text. According to Putin, contemporary world is unpredictable, complicated, and dangerous in many ways, starting from, as he put it, unpatient, bellicosity everywhere and erosion of international institutions, international law, and finishing with a new notion which he introduced in this article, illegal soft power, which is used by different countries in particular by this country to undermine society, stability in societies by means of funding NGOs, funding different organizations in working against stability in Russia and in other countries. So the main message from this article, which some colleagues compared to Munich speech five years ago, Munich speech was exactly five years ago, February 2007, and some people read the anti-American, anti-Western sentiments in this article, like in Munich speech. In my understanding, it's not a fair comparison. This article is completely different because Munich speech was very energetic, sometimes even aggressive in criticizing the West for its failure to build equal and fruitful relationship with Russia. This article is completely different, of completely different mood. It's rather defensive. And the main message we need to protect our country for numerous challenges and threats coming from the outside. This is no energy for expansion. There is rather concern. Putin is really worried about what is going on in world affairs and what is happening around Russia and which impact it can have on Russia. What Russia should do to survive in this world? First of all, and this is, I think, a very important statement by Putin, not in this final article, but rather in the first one published in January in Izvestia, Russia should stop to look backwards all the time. He said in his first article, the post-Soviet era is over and the post-Soviet agenda has been completely exhausted. And I think it is really very important statement, very, very correct and right statement, which gives me and gives many of readers of this article a hope that we can expect something new in years to come. What means post-Soviet agenda? Since collapse of the Soviet Union, this event, which is identified and described by maybe majority of Russian people as a tragic event, as a misfortune event, served as a reference point for any political activities. If we try to generalize, which is very difficult to generalize whole period between 1991 and approximately late 2000, we had very different presidents, Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev. We had different policies, but looking in general terms, the aim was the same, both for Yeltsin, Putin and Medvedev, to prove to the outside world, first of all to the United States and Europe as winners in the Cold War, to prove that collapse of the Soviet Union did not mean Russian disappearance from global stage as an actor, as a player. Different presidents tried to do it by different means. Yeltsin had one kind of leverage, Putin another kind of leverage and Putin was very different during his eight years as president, his first and second presidency. But the aim was the same, and this aim was more or less reached by the end of 2000s, and in psychological terms, tragic events in August 2008, the Russian-Georgian war was a culmination of this agenda. I put aside all moral aspects of this disaster, but in terms of psychological, in terms of psychology of Russian society, of Russian establishment, it was the first time since late Gorbachev when Russia stopped to retreat, when Russia said no and said basically if we say this is a red line so you should understand that this is a real red line. And psychologically it was very important. It was seen as a success. It was war not with Georgia in psychological terms, but of course it was a war with the United States. Anyway, after short euphoria, which came, realizations started to emerge that to say in Barack Obama's word yes we can, but actually this is all we can. And that was not the beginning of new Russian expansionism as many feared in those days, but rather the end. And since that, Russia started to gradually move to the new understanding of international role, its own international role. And Medvedev's period after August 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, that was a period of regionalization of ambitions to put it in this way. Russia started to identify zone of privileged interests as Medvedev put it in August 2008, but at that time it was perceived as a threat. But looking back we understand that it was rather the opposite. So he for the first time actually said that yes we have privileged interests but they are limited. They are not global as Soviet Union, Soviet Union had no sphere of interest. He had the whole globe and he tried to get it all. Since that we saw several signs of this rebalancing and re-identification of interests. One of examples is that 2010 when bloodshed in Kyrgyzstan started so everybody expected Russia to intervene. And everybody even wanted Russia to intervene, but Russia didn't. Should it happen two, three years before? I'm almost sure that Russia would intervene to show that it's still a major player there. But 2010 it was another mood and it was quite a rational consideration what can we do to stop it. The conclusion was we cannot do much and so then it's not worth to take risks. So if we analyze Russian policy since 2008 we can find several signs of this kind of revisiting. By the way, in his last article Putin didn't mention the Cold War which is unusual because he and many Russian officials used to do it almost all the time and that was part of this post-Soviet agenda that Cold War, after Cold War was such an important psychological event such a big trauma that statements came back to that again and again. He doesn't mention that in this article and I think it's also quite an important step. By the way, it's also a reason to start to think what are real differences between Russia and the United States because until now we used to blame a lot of problems on the legacy of the Cold War. It's inertia, mental, we stuck in old confrontation and so on which is partly true because many people still live in old stereotypes but I'm afraid that the situation is actually more complicated that now we can see new kind of misunderstanding to emerge not because of the Cold War rivalry but because of completely different conceptual views on how the world looks like and how it should look like to be stable and to be secure. Putin's Russia to judge from his article is very much disappointed in the West but disappointed in a different way than it was five years ago. At that time again it was much more about irritation that you don't want to treat us seriously and you don't treat us equally as equal partners as serious partners. Now it's different. Now he basically says that the West is quite important in world affairs. West is trying to impose its own models and ideas on the whole world but it fails everywhere. So look, the results. Western policy is inefficient and short-sighted without any ability to seriously analyze what is happening. It's a lot of ideology and very insufficiently of analysis. So every looking at all major international problems starting from Arab Spring and to Iran or North Korea Putin basically comes to conclusion that it doesn't work. What you propose it doesn't work. This interesting detail which could be seen even before but is repeated again in his article Putin sees international development as a comprehensive one. Each move will have inevitable, unavoidable consequences which is the trivial, trivial idea of course but it looks sometimes that some moves by nature, by US, by many international actors are not calculated in this way. So there is a feeling that somebody is trying to say okay we do it and it's isolated from the rest. So it's okay with this case but then we look what we'll do with other things and Putin's view is more classical that everything is interconnected and if you destroy secular dictatorship in one country then you will get Islamic rise and renaissance in many other countries or something like this. Putin's view on world affairs is very classical. The central piece of international system should be in sovereign state. Sovereignty is untouchable. It should be structural element of international system and there is no other principle, no other idea, no other element which could replace sovereignty and sovereign state as this key core element. So to elaborate on this and to try to find his conceptual difference from many others Putin believes in classical principles and he doesn't believe in values. He thinks that the so-called value-based policy, politics means actually that you manipulate with some words and notions and apply it in an absolutely free way based on current interest in each particular case. Then the important thing about Putin and this is a difference to Medvedev's time as president. It seems that Putin still believes that Russia should remain a global power not necessarily to try to expand different parts of the world but play across the whole field in order to secure interest in a particular part in this sphere of privileged interest but Russia should not isolate itself from games and from battles around in other parts of the world. So there is a global status which is needed not for expansion, not for expansionism but rather for keeping status quo, for not degrade, not to retreat more. Here Putin sees Russia as not as a systemic opponent to the United States as many things but as a guarantor of a certain setup of view, setup of principles, classical ones with sovereignty, with strategic independence of great powers, with belief and balance of powers and he identifies those whom he sees not allies but those who share same views, same values if we say it. There are BRICS countries like China, like India, those who also believe in sovereignty and balance of power. Putin is absolutely sure that Russia is a target for unfriendly impact, unfriendly influence. Starting from military challenges, missile defense, NATO enlargement, till attempts to impose some kind of social and political system through social media and as he put it, illegal soft power. So generally the world is extremely hostile and risky. So to be sure Russia needs strength so it can only rely on its own strength and only in this case Russia will be respected and will be treated in an equal way. So which is important for the future is that Putin after three and a half years as prime minister when he did not deal with foreign policy on a daily basis but he is still extremely suspicious with the United States. The feelings accumulated during his presidency 2000 to 2008 is still there. Nothing changed. He still cannot digest what he considers as absolutely unfair behavior of Bush administration and his anti-Americanism in this regard is product not of his past as many journalists used to say that as former KGB and so. But in fact he started early 2000s as a very much pro-Western and pro-American president. He wanted to approach United States. He offered different ideas. He helped Americans in Central Asia after 9-11 in Afghanistan. He closed down to quite important symbolically important facilities, military facilities one in Vietnam military base and Raider in Cuba which nobody recalls now. So it was perceived by Americans as something okay of course for granted. By the way he would never do it today so he would maybe invest more money in this Raider station in Cuba. And he expected that American side Bush administration would reciprocate in a similar way that it will be increased strategic confidence, strategic trust between two countries different kinds of interaction. What did he get in return? At least from his point of view aggressive intervention of American interest in the post-Soviet area which Russia always believed was very important, delicate sphere for Russian interest. Georgia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, human rights campaign, democracy promotion campaign, missile defense side in Poland, Czech Republic. So in Putin's perspective that was Bush's response to what Russia did 2001-2002 to help Americans in that very difficult situation they found themselves. So I'm afraid that there is no chance to expect that relationship between Russia and America will be easy more than that after all passions will be completed here in US and there in Russia. And new administrations will take their seats. Unfortunately the only thing we will have immediately on our bilateral agenda is missile defense and there is absolutely no chance to bypass it. So Russian side both Putin and Medvedev emphasized many times that do not expect that we will forget about that. This is a principle thing for Russian side. As long as we don't have any other principle of strategic stability than mutually assured destruction and unfortunately we don't, there is no way to ignore missile defense plans even if there is a very distant and not very likely prospect of building that. But Putin personally is very involved in this issue. And in his article he once again reminded about proposals given to George Bush administration in Kennebank port 2007 and the reaction which was known by Bush administration and so on. So I'm afraid that we will need some serious reshuffle of our relationship in order to get a new agenda otherwise we will stuck in this missile defense completely and that will define our relationship in years to come. Despite all this Putin many times stressed that Russia is an open country which is ready to economically interact, deeply economically interact with everybody, with all partners. And in his recent article he passionately defended Russian membership in WTO which as you maybe know is not at all a popular option in Russia. It was rather controversial decision by the government to join. And another interesting detail of this spirit of openness which Putin displayed was one of previous articles dedicated to security and military issues where he wrote that actually to buy arms in other countries abroad is a normal thing. And this is in a way a revolution because the traditional Russian approach is that no, it should be self-sufficient, it should be totally self-produced area. So to outline some contours of Russian foreign policy in years to come we need to refer to three big highlights, global development which will have impact on Russia, on Russian positioning. First there is an obvious decline of the European Union as a political force and that will have quite a serious impact both on Russian-European relationship and on development inside Russia and in many of neighboring countries because the European choice, the hypothetical integration into European system, European structures has always been important part of political debate even in Russia despite the fact that Russia never considered seriously to join European Union but especially in neighboring countries like Ukraine, Moldova and that was actually in Ukraine it was the core of whole debate since Kuchma or since even Kravchuk time. So now the disappearance of the European Union as a significant political player and deep crisis of conceptual crisis of European integration will change this and it's quite difficult to understand how those countries will position themselves if they understand that European choice is not available anymore, European choice in form of membership in the European Union is not available anymore. For Russia it's quite a problematic because abstract European model used to play important role in shaping internal debate as a symbol of progress, symbol of success and now it's quite difficult to refer to Europe as a model for successful development so I think that development in the European Union will have major impact on Russia maybe new Europe, more national, less integrated will mean new opportunities for Russian Federation because Russia always wanted to strike bilateral deals with particular countries and now it seems that the whole development inside the European Union is rather towards this model. Second process which will have major impact, huge impact on Russia there is rise of Asia, shift of global focus from Euro-Atlantic to Asia-Pacific Russia will need to find completely new approach, new strategy, new comprehensive strategy in Asia so far it doesn't exist and it's quite a symbolic coincidence that Putin's first visit after his announcement about comeback was to Beijing it was a coincidence of course but very symbolic one and I personally think that in his six years as president China issue of China will be number one for him and I hope even that it might start to gradually change prism through which we, I mean Russia and America look at each other because in Asia, unlike Europe, in Asia we have more in common and from different angles but Moscow and Washington are facing same problems nobody knows how to deal with China now and especially how to deal with China in five years time, ten years time if China continues to develop in a way as now and third there is a change of approach vis-à-vis neighboring countries I touched upon that before Russian obsession with the imitation of re-establishing of Soviet Union or not Soviet Union but something around Russia which was quite important part of agenda in 1990s and in 2000s now it changes and Russia is trying to formulate a new approach which is much more pragmatic, much more economy based and there is an attempt, I mean the customs union or now it is called Eurasian Union there is not an attempt to restore Soviet Union it's just the opposite, it's an attempt for the first time by the way to invite partners, some of neighboring countries by the way not all of them to participate in a structure which can be mutually beneficial for all and this is not about Soviet Union, it's just about economy to expand markets, to try to restore those production chains which were broken by collapse of the Soviet Union and I would rather say that this is an attempt to launch something like a European integration 60 years ago, I mean conceptually no guarantee that it will be successful but at least it's the first attempt to be serious about that it not just imitates that all neighboring countries want to have Russia as a patron the main challenge to Putin or to the next president will be that he will share a situation which he cannot fully control Russia is extremely vulnerable what will happen in the European Union that will have tremendous impact on Russia, on Russian economy will US government be able to deal with the federal debt and improve economic situation that's also very important for the general oil and gas conjuncture and for Russia whether China will be able to keep the sufficiently high level of economic growth high rate of economic growth what will happen in the Middle East with Iran, with Syria, with all countries in Saudi Arabia who is not guaranteed that in 2-3 years time we will not be faced with something similar in Gulf states all this is beyond Russian control but all this will have tremendous impact on Russia I think Putin is very much aware of this and that's why I think that despite his rhetoric despite his passions and his emotions with the United States despite his conceptual views which some of them are of course about how to make Russia an important player and play a bigger role but his basic and core principle in world affairs will be a medical one, do not harm do not do something which can worsen situation or which can provoke some development which will be disastrous additional problem for any Russian ruler for any ruler of unstable countries countries with unstable democracy there is that any internal turbulence will be resonating with external factors and can finally destroy any construction and this is a very difficult dilemma for any ruler what to do with social unrest for example if you try to press it, to dissolve it you can arrive to enormous escalation because of external influence because of internal if you try to ignore it to let it go then you can arrive to the same result and I think that this line is very thin and how to identify, how to find it that's the biggest task for any president or prime minister especially in Russia with this enormous amount of unresolved problems Putin is aware of that I still belong to the minority of experts in Russia who think thought that Putin will not be back, mistaken but at least I still believe that he didn't want to do it and the decision to come back was a result of his considerations and his conclusion that without him it will be even worse so certain kind of disappointment in the acting president some of colleagues said after historic announcement in September about this exchange that thanks God now we have clarity for next 24 years in Russia 12 more years of Putin then 12 more years of Medvedev and its stability quite several weeks after we saw that stability is not that safe and it's absolutely senseless to try to predict for such a long period anyway this time 6 years which Putin will be serve as next president most likely will do will not be time of final self-identification and finding a new way, new path for Russia it's just impossible because the whole world is collapsing all institutions, all norms the only way to conduct policy is just to react more or less efficiently to outside impulses and try to survive in more or less stable form but this period is crucial because after that I think by the end of this decade we will see some kind of clarity in world affairs almost everything will depend on in which form, in which condition Russia will arrive to this moment and that means that Putin has enormous responsibility he hopefully was aware of that when he decided to come back and now we will see whether he will be fit for this job thank you Well, Fyodor, when I was inspired to invite you to speak in this series it was actually when I heard your presentation in Kaluga at the Valdai Discussion Club conference in early November and you outlined a foreign policy agenda for the next Russian president and I thought that the presentation was so extraordinary in its analytical depth and its comprehensive breadth that you were the ideal person to come here to Washington to talk about that in the context of our series looking at Russia's emerging futures and you have certainly not disappointed us in the least bit with that last presentation now, but like Vladimir Putin you live in a world of risk and we are going to now open the floor to questions and comments and open discussion with the video cameras running and if I might, I would like to take the prerogative of the chair to ask you the first question I have a two-pronged question looking at what I think were the central motivations or amongst the central motivations for both the United States and Russia to undertake the rapprochement, the so-called reset that began nearly, well, began three years ago I know for the Obama administration that the central concern driving them to improve ties with Russia was concerned the urgency of the Iranian nuclear program that was the number one priority probably the number two priority was the Afghan war and expectations of increasing a military footprint there and need for support from Russia in that regard and I think the third priority was a different vision for nuclear arms control, more traditional one and the imminent expiration of the start one treaty Now, on Iran, this remains, I think, the central preoccupation for the Obama administration probably for ties with Russia and with others I was struck in the speech, excuse me, the article Russia in a Changing World published two days ago in Moskosky Novosti that Putin actually said very little about Iran and it was quite moderate So I was wondering if you might express your views of what you think would be the prospects for a further meeting of the minds between the Obama administration and a Putin administration on Iran the possibility of further sanctions on Iran and or other actions On the reverse side and this is I don't know for a fact but it's been one of my operating hypotheses is that one of the things that motivated Russia and gave Russia incentives for improving relations with the United States was the perception that coming out of the Putin always talked about the changing global balance of power in the world that was a central theme of his Munich speech and that these emerging powers were becoming more powerful and the West was declining but coming out of the global economic crisis that there was an acceleration of this shift and very much in the favor of China and there is some concern that the unmitigated growth of power and influence of China was not, the growth and influence of China was not necessarily an unmitigated good for Russia and that it made sense for Russia to actually improve its ties with Washington to help to balance its overall foreign policy portfolio if you will Now in looking at, if I look at the speech excuse me, the article published two days ago quite a bit set about China very positive with very small caveats although that there were caveats maybe significant full shared vision with the Chinese leadership highest level of trust ever with the Chinese leadership and strikingly there was not one word said about Japan I'm not in significant country and if I take, if I were just to look at that article it would suggest to me that in fact well it looks like Russia has decided to really bandwagon with Chinese power and to not engage in balancing efforts with other powers in Asia including the United States and Japan and I wonder what is your perspective on that Yeah, that's another introduction for 45 minutes or so You have to give me a few There's a lot of people in the audience So about Iran, I think that any further cooperation will be quite difficult because Russian view on Iranian threat is different from American and Israeli view Russia does not see Iran as such an unpredictable and crazy regime as many people do here or especially in Israel Sanctions on Iran 2010 it was part of package deal actually what was reset, reset was a package deal Americans dislike this notion and never mention that but in fact it was a package deal which involved several topics interconnected and part of that was Iran because Russia understood and Medvedev and Putin understood that as you said for Obama administration it was maybe the most important element of the whole reset I don't see any package deals in the foreseeable future between Russia and the United States not because of quite a shaky stance of relationship but first of all because I don't see topics which can be interconnected and discussed in this package So I'm afraid that after what happened in Libya and after what is going on in Syria now where Russia and United States take diametrical positions not only because of Russian arms contracts with Syria as some people say here now it doesn't matter anymore it mattered initially but not anymore it's a conceptual difference how to deal with international crisis and I don't see a big prospect for this kind of cooperation on Iran unless situation will change drastically and for example Iran will openly demonstrate that it spars and almost achieves this nuclear status By the way to talk about reasons for Russia to be engaged in reset policy with Obama I think the main one was not China the main one was desire to ease pressure American pressure on the post-Soviet area because from Russian point of view it was the main concern and the main irritation in the Bush administration especially at the end of the mandate decided to complete a couple of important things and all of them both NATO enlargement to Georgia and Ukraine and a third site a new missile defence installations in Poland and Czech Republic both were in the area which Russia thought was very delicate and important and actually after reset we see that American activities in the post-Soviet area has been much less than before and this is what Russia thinks is a big achievement as for China in Hillary Clinton's article about US strategy in Asia a couple of months ago Russia wasn't mentioned at all which I think is strange because Russia is not the strongest element in Asian politics and Asian affairs but it is a huge country mainly placed in Asia with quite a big potential just to play this balancing role so I'm afraid that we still don't have any understanding I mean both here and there that we will need to find a new configuration in Asia and for Russia it's vitally important to have excellent relationship with China but as Putin told at his recent meeting with political scientists he was very very polite and constructive about China but at the same time he said if you think he answering actually my question about Russian-Chinese relationship he was very positive but at the same time he said if you think that we are blind and deaf and we don't see what they are doing military build up and economic might and so you are wrong so we see everything so of course this for Putin what I said in my introduction I think that China issue will be maybe the most important one for Putin in years to come okay thanks let's open the floor up please a microphone come around and identify yourself Hi I'm Carol Bogart from Human Rights Watch I have a question again last time we talked also about Syria and you mentioned the conceptual difference really two questions among foreign policy experts I know in Moscow there is an increasing recognition that Russia has gotten into a dead end but they seem to feel that in the Kremlin there is not a similar appreciation for where Russia has arrived in Syria and where the Russian veto on the UN resolution has gotten not just Russia but Syria and the world what do you think is in Putin's mind about Syria you mentioned that there is a conceptual difference with the West about it and if I could ask further in his article on foreign policy Putin justifies the veto as did Shurken at the time and others as an attempt to forestall civil war or war let's say that this resolution would lead as with Libya to international military intervention that was bad but in fact we are now in a state where civil war is increasingly inevitable if not in fact going on right now the Saudis, the Qataris are opening bank accounts for the Syrian opposition for them to buy weapons the Libyans announced today they were giving 100 million dollars to the Syrian opposition I don't think that's for juice and candy the blocking of the diplomatic path at the UN is actually what is pushing Syria into increasingly war is that an argument that has any resonance or understanding in Russia and what do you think Putin's feelings about Kofi Annan are maybe we can collect maybe we can collect we'll take another question a short comment a short comment and then a question the comment is related to the question I was struck by what you said about Putin's speech five years ago and the article the contrast I was there when Putin made that speech and I have to say I was struck very much by how personally this was this was an emotional outburst basically and he really had the feeling what right does the United States have to go around trampling international law trying to tell us what to do and so forth but this came at a time when Russia was still and under Putin doing well what seems to me now as you said is the defensive tone that was offensive but also personal and emotional now my question is if you look at what Putin inherits today the situation is very different I would argue it's a very different Russia than the Russia that he took one in which the economic situation is much worse but also one in which there is this political unrest and an assertive middle class do you think he understands the degree to which Russia has changed do you think that he would be willing to make some compromises in order to assuage some of the protests or do you think it is likely that he will clamp down and what impact then do you think domestic politics will have on Russian foreign policy Hi my name is Chris Thorpe I'm from Democracy International as you stated NGOs in Russia that receive foreign funding such as Golos have been severely criticized by Putin in your opinion what effect have these organizations had in Russia among the public as well as among the elites and also what impact especially if protests continue past the one scheduled for March 5th and 10th and especially if the election is how that will be perceived what impact will this have on the way Putin governs thank you I'm serious I think that there is a full understanding in Russian foreign ministry for example that Assad regime is doomed to fail and what I mentioned in before that initially it was part of motivation was commercial but not anymore because it's clear that deals with this regime will not be very safe I think that discussion about what was worse to adopt resolution block resolution might be endless and Russian diplomats will give some arguments in favor of their position and you will give different arguments my view as an outsider is that by the time the resolution was proposed and the draft was put in the security consulate was gone so the civil war in Syria started before and the diplomatic solution was possible maybe half a year ago but not anymore conceptual difference is that Russia sees what is happening in Syria as a again civil war with heavy international intervention already now in form of Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Arab Gulf states on the one side Iran on the other side and the question and it's quite clear what is happening this two political stand between Saudi Arabia and Iran on the one hand religious sectarian controversy between Syria and Sunni on the other hand and the question is why should the international community be engaged on one side in this war why this side why we think that this side is better than the other and this is a conceptual difference to the west and to Arab world I think Arab countries have their own agenda and the Arab League is driven by two-three countries with completely very clear interest as for western picture Russians simply don't buy this perception as a peaceful freedom and democracy loving people against bloody tyrant so it's much more complicated and now especially now it doesn't matter who wins it will be a complete mess in Syria I'm afraid that the worst thing which will happen and nobody discusses it yet what will happen to minorities because the situation for Alavites for Christians for Armenians for Kurds in the post-Assad Syria will be awful and of course Saudi Arabia and Qatar will not care about that at all but for the west it's quite a big problem to see how Christians for example will be slaughtered in Syria and I think that should be discussed now and here I hope that Russia could play a role but unfortunately instead of that we have this conceptual difference Kofi Annan I didn't hear anything substantial about this mission again my feeling I'm afraid that this is shared also by many people in Russian establishment it's too late any special envoy cannot change this situation to what extent Putin understands that Russia has changed he realizes that something has changed and the meeting with political commentators and scientists early February he was quite quite detailed about that and my feeling was that he understands that it's not only Hillary Clinton's money which makes people to go to the streets it's something, something else he believes sincerely that this is wrong that those people maybe sincerely, maybe they are honest people but they don't understand what they want and they don't understand that the Russian statehood is still extremely fragile and this is too early to implement changes they might demand at the same time you say that Russia today is much weaker than Russia 5 years ago when Putin delivered his Munich speech that's true more difficult, yeah, absolutely but at the same time which country since that became less difficult that's the total mess everywhere so yeah, of course, but this is a gradual degradation of everything in this part of that I would not overestimate yet at least the scale of protests because we are a little bit fascinated by those couple of gatherings in Moscow which were very impressive really but Russia is not only Moscow and if you look at the whole country I'm afraid that quite a lot of people they are terribly angry about those who come to Moscow because they see that those guys are actually very well-being, wealthy persons and this is a middle class or how to call it the creative class, it's now many names for that who actually wants to live even better than they live now and compared to how many people in other places do they are okay and so in my understanding there is a good opportunity for for the government if they will be smart if Putin will be smart and his aides will be smart actually to calm down this and to divide this movement because movement it's not a position in the normal sense you cannot say there is not structure they have no leaders they have no program no ideas there is a big bunch of angry people people who want to choose presidents in the same way as they choose cars, restaurants or where to go on vacation and they have no opportunity to choose president yet and that's why they are angry they want dynamism they want change but basically majority of them don't want revolutions doesn't want revolutions so it is a it's quite possible Putin could handle that of course your question I cannot answer because I cannot really understand how deep he understands this movement initially after the first gathering his reaction was that wrong with his jokes embarrassing remarks that it doubled size of the next gathering exactly doubled size because people are pissed off by what he said about them but then he became more cautious and actually real campaign against them but real campaign political campaign as here as in the United States I think that it's still an opportunity for him to to respond to those dissatisfied people but that we will see it very soon because the crucial moment will be couple of days after election with some people who will try to demonstrate regardless what kind of election we will have even the cleanest ones part of opposition will say that was falsified and reaction of authorities will show in which mood Putin is NGOs this is unfortunately quite a bad prospect because Putin is very clear about that he was clear many times but especially in the recent article he still believes that NGO with foreign funding are more or less agents for foreign governments and that's his deep conviction and I'm afraid that after this election we will have another wave of changed legislation in order to make this foreign funding less efficient or more complicated ok, yeah, Steve Thanks Steve Flanagan from CSIS I wanted to come back to your comment about how missile defense may probably in a negative way define the future of the US-Russian relationship ironically it was an issue that of course was seized upon I think by the administration as a possible game changer and something that could show Russia indeed that not only the US and Russia and indeed the US NATO and Russia could cooperate on a security issue that would show clear benefit to Russia granted there's your point about there isn't that shared threat assessment about Iran or this concern about Iran but certainly there's an understanding of the US concern certainly Russian intelligence and many analysts know that the scope of the system that NATO envisions up through at least the 2020 period is can in no way threaten the Russian strategic deterrent so why choose this issue I mean unless, I mean, and maybe your point about are they bandwagoning with, is the plan to bandwagon with China why choose this issue to try to define and almost assure a confrontation with the US and NATO rather than to try to explore wait-and-see attitude it seems as if the Russian intent is to get some kind of ironclad guarantee another treaty which again Russian political analysts know is impossible for the Obama administration it would never happen under the notion of rebirthing the ABM treaty is out of the question so I guess if you could just elaborate a little bit more on sort of how do you see the calculus in all this why make this such a defining issue and almost, you know, to almost ensure kind of a breakdown in relations over this issue Dan Gibbons, Georgetown University sir, I was wanting to go back a little bit what you said about the the previous incarnation of Putin and his interest in the sort of the sharing of relation with the United States which he was somewhat disappointed in not getting if you could I wonder if it's possible to identify what sorts of things he might have had in mind that Russia and the United States would be doing on this level of global whatever it is that he had in mind here if you could get a sense of what kinds of things he might have been thinking about collaborating with on that level Richard Richard Weitz, Hudson Institute actually, I disagree with Steve I agree with you, I think the missile defense is a really bad idea to try and cooperate and I think the more we try and force it the more disruptive our relationship would be so I want to propose another area where we do actually have a cooperative shared interest and relates to the pivot that both countries are going through Asia which is Korea I think that Russia can play a very positive role in helping us deal with North Korea I mean it has a lot of interest in promoting economic development for its own reason to link the better to Asia it coincides very much with a lot of U.S. goals and I wasn't sure if you saw any new opportunities such as the deal today perhaps for the cooperation in that area thank you About missile defense you said up to 2020 there is no threat for Russian strategic deterrence which is true but 2020 is not a strategic horizon at all so and this is a problem that American is saying, yeah, why are why are you so concerned why not wait and see until 2020 but 2020 if the current plan will be implemented not necessarily the case but if then next stage will be about a different kind of system which might pose some problem for Russian strategic deterrence and of course to start to protest at that moment will be even more senseless than to protest now so in this regard I understand our generals if we assume and unfortunately we do that missile defense is also against Russia not exclusively against Russia but then we should deal with this issue now not after 2020 when the basics will be already installed by American side so this is quite a logical approach another thing is that that's a profound problem of total lack of trust in strategic affairs the whole discussion after Lisbon summit between Lisbon summit in November and final statement by Rasmussen in June I think it's no progress and Russian ideas are non-acceptable and so it was a very interesting discussion and the conclusion was that we have no mutually acceptable ideas so in Russian generals do not trust nature or US rather than nature they of course those ideas about binding guarantees that's another part of game because even if we would have binding guarantees so what any country could withdraw from any treaty and say sorry now binding guarantees doesn't matter anymore I'm afraid it's we can discuss technicalities very extensively and detailed and maybe even find some kind of first initial approaches too but since there is a profound mistrust under Russians on both sides actually and we still see each other and those arsenals they are seen they are there is no other reasons to have such arsenals but to have it against each other because otherwise no need and that's why I'm afraid we are doomed to fail what Putin is saying now fortunately what he wrote in his article about national security three weeks ago he wrote we have two options to start to build up our own missile defense or to strengthen our missile and nuclear potential to make their missile defense inefficient and we choose second option which I think is a great idea because to build up our own missile defense would mean that Russian budget will collapse so we had this such kind of approach 25 years ago and now we know how it ends up but in conceptual terms I'm afraid we are stuck with this mutual destruction and still no ideas at all how to overcome it what Putin thought about cooperation with United States I think the initial idea was that first of all Russia has a strategic sphere where United States should not be active maybe involved but not in ways Bush tried to do with NATO enlargement and so I think Putin was quite sincere about counter-terrorism and he shared many of views by Bush administration about terrorists Islamists and so on and in a way he succeeded with that because after 9-11 American protests about Chechen were decreased significantly to what extent Putin could imagine strategic alliance or not strategic alliance with United States I don't know I think that in very limited form because the strategic independence of Russia is absolutely sacred for him it's what Russia should have in any case and that's why for example Russia could not join NATO because that would mean imagine that it would be possible but that would mean serious limitation of strategic action of independence which Russia would not like to go in so the vision of Russian-American relationship if we put aside demagogia about common values and so there is none existing unfortunately there is not a vision about that Korea I fully agree Korea is a very it might be a very successful case for cooperation I think that Russian proposals about gas pipeline to North Korea to South Korea it's interesting proposal it's important to discuss unfortunately policy conducted by international community under American umbrella since basically mid 90s to stop North Korea nuclear program has failed completely and so we need new approaches and Russia I fully agree in this particular case Russia can play very constructive role because Russia is seen in the areas in neutral power without big engagement on one of sides and interestingly in the article in Moscow's Kinovsty Putin mentioned both North Korea and Iran and about North Korea he wrote that nuclear capacity of North Korea is unacceptable about Iran he didn't write it which is strange because North Korea already has nuclear capacity but Iran doesn't but I fully agree it's one of cases when we can work together okay we have time for just a couple more questions yes thank you short question you mentioned regional attitude from Russian side what would be your prediction concerning Russian policy towards Baltic states in the next six years Wayne Mary American Foreign Policy Council we haven't really talked about Europe and yet when Putin was president twice two terms before his engagement with Europe was one of the more strikingly successful parts of Russia's international relationships his very good relations with French president, German Chancellor Italian Prime Minister even with the British Prime Minister and this was an area in which you would have to say that his often stated view that Russia is a European country and he considers himself a European was manifest in foreign policy priorities now we all know that Europe is somewhat otherwise engaged at the moment but who isn't and yet could you discuss Europe a little bit in terms of where you see a future Putin presidency George Mason University I was wondering if you could elaborate on Putin's discussion of illegal soft power I mean is it criminal in the way it's conducted and so forth you know who knows some examples and so forth of that thank you illegal soft power is a very new notion it emerged two days ago in this article it wasn't there before so I cannot say much what he means is that he makes a distinction there in this article he says that we welcome or we understand the official lobbyism if an organization works for interests of another country officially it's fine but what he calls illegal soft power when some foreign structures or institutions give money to local Russian NGOs or organizations and they then implement their agenda rather than then Russian one that's what he means and since he used this notion of illegal that's why I suspect I assume that it will be some kind of legal actions that the law now it's legal but the law can be changed about Baltic states I don't think Baltic states are now in the focus of Russian foreign policy or any policy Putin in this article mentioned the compatriots but I would say it's rather just routine he must say it because they are also voters some people in Latvia for example quite many Russian citizens who can vote basically I don't see any reasons for problems hopefully with the Baltic states in years to come it's bad relationship, quite a bad relationship with Estonia but nothing which could provoke a new wave of active standoff a couple of years ago about Europe all friends of Vladimir Putin are out Berlusconi was the last one unfortunately he also departed recently which does not mean that his interest for Europe will diminish you are absolutely right genuinely he is a very much pro-European in the sense that he is interested in Europe he wants Russia to be part of European sphere he for sure identifies Russia as a European country and he will try to use the current disarray in European Union to cut new to establish new ties to find ways how to by means of commercial alliances commercial strategic alliances to implement his initial idea from his first presidency about big deal swap between Russia and Europe the asset swap the Russian mineral resources for European technology and this idea came up several times during his presidency even when he was prime minister one of his few speeches on foreign affairs was about that about necessity to build a strong new Europe including Russia and this is interesting that Medvedev who was seen as a more pro-western more pro-European leader because he was polite he was smiling he was constructive and it was quite pleasant thing to deal with him but if you put aside this his time as president was maybe the emptiest and the most senseless in relationship with European Union nothing but declarations when Putin was president he tried to get something he tried to propose he was emotional, he was negative but because of interest Medvedev was absolutely indifferent about Europe he was strangely enough more interested in Asia and if you even compare geography of his visits state visits Asia is prevailing unlike Putin who is much more eager to be seen as a European so I think that will be a new attempt to conquer to conquer Europe the question is what will happen there because looking at the trends in the European Union today I wouldn't be optimistic about their ability to look strategically at a relationship with anybody including Russia Well, Fyodor, that was a remarkable tour d'horizon one maximum show is to always leave them wanting more and I apologize for all of you that have questions and comments and I have about 25 more myself but I think that time is up and Fyodor, you have more than over fulfilled the plan so let me lead the thanks from all of us for your sharing your thoughts and your insights today with all of us here