This is Democracy – Episode 175: Russia, Ukraine, and the United States

This is democracy, a podcast about the people of the United States, a podcast about citizenship, about engaging with politics and the world around you. A podcast about educating yourself on today’s important issues and how to have a voice in what happens next.

Welcome to our new episode of this is democracy. This week, we’re going to discuss U S Russia relations and enduring topic, a topic that has been in some ways, fundamental to American policy and American politics. Since at least the mid 20th century, and one can take this story back a lot earlier. Of course today us Russia relations are one of the most volatile and significant set of, uh, foreign policy relations in the world.

And there are also a set of relations that have a deep effect upon American domestic politics. Our debates about elections, our debates about domestic legitimacy have in many ways revolved around relations with Russia over the last four to eight years. We’re joined today. By a long time friend, colleague, highly respected writer and policy thinker who I think has done some of the most important work on understanding the long history of Russian us relations and the relevance of that history for today.

This is our friend, Dr. Michael Kimmage. Michael, thank you for joining us today. Thank you, Zachary and Jeremy for having me wonderful. It’s really wonderful to have you back on Michael Michael is as many of, you know, a professor of history at the Catholic university of America in Washington, DC. He’s also a fellow at the German Marshall fund and he’s chair of the advisory council for the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson center in Washington, DC.

And as I’m sure, many of our listeners know that Canada Institute is one of the premier think tanks for Russian politics in US-Russian relations in the United States named for George. Of course from 2014 to 2017, uh, Michael served on the secretary of state’s policy planning staff at the us state department, where he was responsible for the Russia and Ukraine portfolio.

He publishes widely on international affairs on us Russia relations and American diplomatic history. He’s also a historian of intellectual life and written a terrific book. Uh, in Lionel trilling and the conservative turn in American politics, the full title is the conservative turn Lionel trilling, Whitaker chambers, and the lessons of anti-communism.

He’s also written a book on Phillip Roth in history, his grip, Phillip Roth’s, Newark trilogy, and most recently a book I highly recommend to all of our listeners, a book. We did a podcast episode on, uh, a few months ago. Uh, the abandonment of the. The history of an idea in American foreign policy that looks at how ideas of the west were so important to the formation of American foreign policy and how important those ideas were made today.

And most recently, Michael has published an article that I can commend to everyone in foreign affairs. Uh co-authored with Michael Kaufman Russia, won’t let you create and go without a fight, very relevant for where we are with a U S Russian Ukrainian relations today. So we have a lot to talk about with.

Before we turn to our discussion though, we have, of course, um, Zachary series, scene setting poem. Uh, what’s the title of your poem? Today’s accurate, the most careful stalemate, the most careful step is that about our dinner debates, if only, and those are in stalemates, cause they crush you for those who are listening.

Zachary is smirking right now. Ah, okay. Zachary, let’s hear your. I like to think that when the border guard is done, staring down the soldier and unfold his sandwich from the lunch pail, he wonders what it’s really supposed to be. The flag that watches him from across the road in Eagle, a C. In avalanche. I wonder if in that moment he really thinks about history, about the history of the great men, of the great men who speak to each other through this sublime, speakerphones of the Washingtons and white halls and Kremlin’s of the worlds, or does he simply want to know whether it will rain or snow?

I like to think there comes a realization that when the army have put down their missile launchers and open their lunch pails in unison, it dawns on all of them, how mundane the modern war is. And yet the most quiet war, the most careful stalemate can be all the more violent and it’s silent. And they go back to their posts and wonder what paperclip the other side is using to hide their tails.

I’m sure all in a day’s work all in a day’s work. And meanwhile, perhaps it is comforting to us behind the lines. When we walk to pick up our peasants cabbages from the garden rows beside the Brook, that we don’t really have to wonder what it means to hold the earth between our fingers. That soil is soil because as soon Steyer says.

And not because we christened it. I love the ending in particular, Zachary, what is your poem about? My poem is really about trying to move beyond this idea, that war and, and the sort of violent clash between societies is some is a phenomenon that is defined by great leaders when it’s really sort of defined by the mundane actions of our daily lives and sort of about this sort of creeping violence.

That war imposes on everyday life. Hmm. Hmm. Michael, I think that sets the scene. Well for thinking about us Russian relations, huh? Indeed. How is it that since the end of the cold war, Michael, uh, when it appeared as if, uh, US-Russian relations were going to enter a period of comedy and collaboration, how is it that as Zachary put it, this sort of ethos and tenor of violence has remained so prominent.

What happened at the end of the cold war that might help to explain the tensions of. I can begin on a very general level it’s of course, a rich and very, very nuanced questions that I think we as historians, even putting policymakers to the side, we, as historians are just beginning to piece together, the many puzzles that lie behind this question, I’ll reflect on this in a pessimistic thing.

I think that there are ways in which. The two countries manage things quite capably since 1991, but I’ll focus on the enmity as you, as you say. And if you look back to the end of the cold war and search of that enmity in search of the sources of that enmity, I think you can find two very general explanations.

And one is at the United States. Official Washington did not. I understand the end of the cold war particularly well. Uh, it made a lot of intellectual mistakes and its understanding of the end of the cold war. One of which was that the cold war really put an end, uh, to a lot of the problems that had been simmering, uh, in Eastern Europe for a very, very long time.

Uh, and probably the most unfortunate intellectual era of the early nineties, late nineties. And you know, it sort of trickles down to today in some ways, is this notion that the United States won the cold war, uh, Did encourage as many have observed with the Iraq war, other events in mind to kind of arrogance, uh, or, or hubris.

And the, the crucial problem of that hubris was this certain inability to see the outside world. We can return to that theme later in our discussion. Uh, if, if you’d like to Jeremy. The second general story, uh, I would say is that Russia became Russia after the cold war. Uh, and it took a while for this to happen.

Uh, we have an anomalous decade, uh, of the 1990s. I think when the country, country of Russia was trying to figure out what it was, uh, and romanticize the west, romanticize its own connection to the. Uh, and was at the same time financially and militarily a week, uh, that began to change, uh, in the early two thousands, or even in the late 1990s.

Uh, and you see an uptick in confrontation between the United States and Russia already at the time of the cost of a war and with other events in the late 1990s. And then when Putin comes to power in 2000, he starts to push what you could describe as a. Traditionally Russian agenda, uh, military modernization, uh, and exerting influence, uh, in the, in the periphery.

And so gradually it doesn’t happen, uh, in a sudden fashion at all, but gradually from 2000 to 2008, you see a deterioration in the relationship. There’s a bit of a hiatus between 2008 and 2012. The reset when Vaidya is seemingly at the helm and then 2011, 2012, the deterioration releases. Uh, in earnest, but if were to go back to the 1990s, I think we need to understand how Russia becomes, uh, Russia once again.

Uh, and we need to understand some of the blinkers that the United States acquired in those, uh, in those years that made it hard for us to interpret the outside. That puts it very well, Michael and really helps us to understand, I think two poles of this discussion, let’s start with the latter. One may be, what does it mean for Russia to become Russia?

This of course is an age old question going back to at least Tolstoy and Dustin and many before them. Um, but, but what does it mean in this context of the late 20th, early 21st century? The way that I understand it, um, and one could go back here. Uh, to the 17th century, uh, and one of the things that, that it means for Russia to be Russia, uh, is this very vexed problem with what the Western border is and what you see in the 1990s is Yeltsin.

And before him Gorbachev really accepted a great retrenchment of Soviet slash. Power the border moved. You want to put it this way from sort of east Berlin and east Germany all the way back to, you know, sort of, uh, the territory is beyond Ukraine and, uh, and, and the other routes. And so under pooting you see a movement in the opposite direction, uh, and you really returned to what’s one of oldest, one of Europe’s oldest geopolitical problems.

Where does Russia and, and where does Europe, uh, begin? I mean, you can revisit the Napoleonic wars. Uh, you can go to the first world war. You can go to the second world war and they all to a degree revolve around this question of where Europe’s influences, uh, gonna come to a kind of natural limit point and where Russia’s influence is going to come to a, uh, a natural limit point.

Uh, and that’s such a contested difficult, uh, Uh, problematic issue. And I think when I think of the U S forgetting about things in that moment of pride and, and perhaps a hubris, the 1990s, I think that’s one of the things that we forgot that this is just has almost the status of an eternal European problem.

We’re right. Smack in the middle of it at the present, uh, at the present moment. I think the other thing for Russia to be Russia, I don’t want to say on autocracy and in the absence of democracy, I think that that’s a cliche. Uh, and that’s well worth challenging. Uh, but there is a very traditional pattern in Russian politics where technology transfer and modernization is pursued for military ends.

Uh, it’s not true with every is, are, it’s probably true with most general secretaries. I don’t know if it was necessarily true hundred Yeltsin, but it’s certainly true under. And in that sense, he’s quite a traditional Russian leader that he’s going to use whatever economic instruments he has. And he has some considerable ones for the sake of modernizing the military.

And then ultimately for the sake of using the material military, these two points converge of course, on how Russia is going to interpret, uh, the problems that crystallize around it’s it’s it’s Western. And Michael, just to put a point on it, is it fundamentally an insecurity about the Western border? I think it’s two things, you know, it’s the, it’s an eternal philosophical question about Russian foreign policy.

Is it in its own terms, offensive or defensive? I think it’s usually. Uh, there are questions of status and pride, you know, that very commonly accrued to empires into former empires or want to be empires that’s, uh, certainly at stake. Um, you know, there is, uh, uh, a strong defensive impulse that wouldn’t really go back to Napoleon in the case of contemporary, Russian strategic culture.

But certainly it goes back to the second world war, and then there can be romantic. You know, sort of civilizational associations, uh, that in particular Russia has with, uh, with Ukraine, the sense of Kia as the mother of all Russian cities and a religious bond. Now Ukrainians might feel that this is a repellent and not their point of view at all, but it plays a role certainly in Putin’s imagination, uh, and also compels Russia to act, uh, at times forthrightly at times aggressively outside of its own borders.

So I think it’s a merger of those, uh, of those things. Defensive and offensive simultaneous. Right? Right. And, and in fact, they’re seen as one of the same from, from the cockpit of Russian power as such, uh, Michael, I wanted to turn to your first, uh, polarity, the, the, um, American blinders. And I was reading the other day, some of the transcripts that are now available.

Bill Clinton’s meetings with Boris Yeltsin, these long, long lunches that seem to have gone on for four hours and included multiple courses and multiple beverages. And it does appear though that bill Clinton. Really wanted to have a close relationship with Russian leader, Boris Yeltsin, and really wanted to, um, work out an arrangement in Clinton’s terms.

That would be a win-win for both societies. Um, there seems to be a lot of Goodwill, I think, between. Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin, when you read these transcripts and I know you, you know, this material quite well. So that said, how is it that in spite of the positive, personal relationship and the, I think efforts at creating win-win situations after the cold war, how is it that the United States was still blind to Russian interests as you, as you said?

Yeah. So I think it’s a perfectly. Uh, question. I think that bill Clinton invested greatly in the U S Russian relationship. There were never more meetings between heads of the two countries as there were in the, in the Clinton Yeltsin, uh, period. Uh, and you know, I think bill Clinton was a very capable foreign policy, uh, precedent, and was really trying to do his best.

So I would impute no sinister motives to him, uh, and you know, no kind of cruel. Uh, no crude hubris, uh, and you know, we get now into the very, very fraught question of NATO expansion, um, which figures a lot in the rhetoric of Putin. So I think we have to pay a close attention to it. And I think that there was a blinder, uh, at work there that NATO expansion could be defined entirely in terms of what the will of the central and Eastern European countries were.

And also as a democratizing via. And a certain unwillingness to see that NATO of course, is going to have geopolitical implications. And it’s going to have a kind of geopolitical resonance, uh, in Russia. And I think it was never seriously considered, although Yeltsin floated the idea and actually Putin did as well of having Russia join NATO that was never seriously considered.

So it was a bit of a naive T I suppose, about what was going to come, uh, in, uh, in the future. And I would make one further criticism that comes from. Uh, these blinders, I think good diplomacy has a lot to do with long-term incentives. And I think what we fail to do, and I don’t know if it’s Clinton’s fault or if it’s a structural thing or maybe it was just destiny, but I think what we failed to do, uh, after the cold war, we meaning the United States and its European allies was to incentivize Russia to sort of join the club.

And again, I’m not sure if this was a doable project, uh, it may not have. Uh, but I will criticize our diplomacy for not exploring that with greater rigor, uh, with greater imagination, uh, just with greater emphasis, what would be the incentives not to bring Russia into NATO. That was probably a fool’s errand, but what would be the incentive to sort of bring Russia into Europe as it were?

And I mean, not economically or culturally, I mean really in the kind of military, uh, or geostrategic sense. And I don’t know why that was. Uh, done with, with the sort of more enterprising spirit, if the expectation was that Russia was a democracy. And so it wasn’t going to be a big problem. The expectation that Russia had sort of knocked itself out at the end of the cold war.

So this as the Soviet union and wasn’t really going to return, I don’t know, but I think that there was something that was a lost opportunity that, that, that did come from this hubris. Uh, mood and sort of futuristic feeling that was there after the cold war, but it’s not a, a great set of Clintons. It’s, uh, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a modest sin, uh, given what he was trying to accomplish, but, but it’s there to be sort of unearthed, I think, from the historical record.

How do we understand Russian popular opinion during this period? Uh, it seems to me somewhat odd, uh, that after the, the seeming. Of the end of the cold war that it seems like it sort of th th th the Russian Russian society is, seemed to fall into this pattern of, of depending, uh, solely on the promise of, of greatness or economic success.

Uh, w why has Russian popular opinion not shifted in the way that I think many Americans expected it to 10 years ago? Yeah, it’s a wonderful question is accurate. I think that it has the answer to, it has to. Components. It’s almost like a romantic relationship that goes awry. And I think it’s often useful to think of the U S restaurant relationship in those terms of a failed marriage in some respects, uh, or a bad relationship.

I think that there was an infatuation, there was a love affair that broke out in the 1990s and post-Soviet Russia a sense that American culture was beguiling and interesting. American was affluent. It was powerful. Uh, it had won the cold war. So there you get the same conclusion drawn from, from, from the other side.

Uh, and there was a fantasy that was projected onto America in terms of the role, it would play in Russia, uh, probably in terms of the country that it, uh, that it actually was. And that I think describes the early to mid 1990s. And then there’s the economic crash. And there are certain moments of tension between the us and Russia.

Former Yugoslavia, a few other issues. And I think the love affair comes to an end. Uh, and you know, sometimes the greatest bitterness is river is reserved for those who we once sort of loved her and wanted to love. Uh, and if you want to psychologize about the us Russian restaurant relationship, you can think that.

Uh, in those, in those terms, but let me emphasize the second part of the, uh, of, or perhaps a third part of this story when it comes to the 2002, two thousands, in terms of Russian public opinion. I think it’s a very complicated point to consider, uh, in light of a potential renewed war between Russia and Ukraine in the winter of 20 21, 20 22, what Russians gained after the end of the cold war was not great prosperity, and it was not democracy.

Uh, and it was not great power status, uh, or at least not immediately what they gained after the end of the, of the cold war. And especially under Putin, uh, was a kind of normalcy. You have a big growth of the middle class after the year 2000 Putin doesn’t create rule of law in Russia, but he creates a lot of predictability.

Uh, and if you look at the city of Moscow now in 2020, compared to what it was in 2000. It’s a much more livable, humane, vibrant, interesting, normal dare one, say European city, uh, than it was in the 1990s. And so Russians won this kind of normalcy and that creates a certain kind of affection for Putin, and it creates a certain kind of affection for this state that he’s built.

And so that makes me very curious about why Putin at the present moment would gamble in that respect, why he would roll the dice militarily and perhaps imperil the normalcy. That probably is the greatest, uh, foundation of his legitimacy such as it is. And Michael, that actually leads perfectly into the question I had, uh, that just takes us one step back from where we are today, which is to Ukraine in 2014.

And this is when, uh, Putin, uh, basically does what had, has not happened very often, at least in around Europe and central Asia, uh, which is to actually seize territory in a, in a very traditional way, sending his forces into. Into a, an area that, uh, was part of Russia then had been transferred to Ukraine, an area of strategic importance and Putin claimed historical importance, seizes this area from Ukraine and begins a low scale, uh, continuous insurgency in the Eastern part of Ukraine.

Why the obsession with Ukraine in 2014 for. Let me just qualify your question in one way, uh, Jeremy, that you have a unresolved sort of territorial dispute in Moldova that begins right after the end of the, uh, of the cold war. Of course, checking yacht is a, is a region of, of, of, of political Russia. Uh, but you have sort of multiple warrants or a long war.

That’s fought throughout the 1990s, uh, by Yeltsin and then by Putin, uh, in Chechnya. And then of course, in 2008, you have the Russian Georgia war, which does resolve. Russia sort of lopping off to bits of territory in Georgia, which haven’t been returned, uh, returned since. So there’s a bit of a precedent for what happens in 2014 in the sort of post-Soviet space or in, in, in, uh, in, in, in and around, uh, and around Russia.

But what happens in Ukraine is quite a bit more, uh, is quite a bit more, uh, more dramatic. Um, I understand 2014 is to a degree accidentally. Uh, I think that Putin didn’t expect COVID who was the pro-Russian figure who gets, uh, you know, sort of hounded out of Ukraine, uh, corrupt the instigator of the, uh, of the mid-on, uh, revolution, the inspiration for the modern revolution.

Uh, and I think part of what Putin does in, in January, February, March of 2014 is in a very impulsive way, make a move. I don’t think it was a blueprint. I don’t think it was something he had been planning for a long time. I’m sure that there were certain plans on this. Uh, but I think he sort of impulsively goes in, uh, and then the results for him are very mixed, uh, Crimea by Russian standards, public opinion that we could return to that, uh, in light of Crimea.

Uh, but also Russian politics. That’s a win for Putin. Uh, this sanctions are not intolerable. Uh, in some ways the issue has been kind of forgotten about in European and us foreign policy. Uh, and he’s sort of gotten away with it and it contributes to his popularity, the Donbass on the other hand. And I think this is very important for understanding what Putin may do in the next couple of months is an albatross around Putin’s neck.

It’s corrupt. It doesn’t give them any real leverage and Ukraine. Uh, it’s a source of, of, of contention between Putin and in Europe puts in, uh, and the west. And so he’s the victim of his own policy. Uh, in, uh, in that respect and, you know, to understand his motivations, I think we could go back to that mix that we were talking about earlier.

There’s a bit of romanticism Ukraine, the sort of brother country of, uh, of Russia. There’s a certain sense of being defensive, the feeling. Western encroachment, probably a misreading of Western intentions in 2014, but the sense that the U S was kind of moving in, uh, in that, uh, in that year. Uh, and then finally, a kind of Imperial impulse where, uh, who is to tell Russia that they don’t have the right to control the problems that they perceive on their borders.

Uh, and you know, so if we have that right, let’s, uh, let’s, let’s exert it, but the results are very mixed in the situation at the moment for Russia. Essentially unresolved. And that’s the crux of the problem with the present moment. They are not going to sit in this situation forever. They’re going to do something about, and, and just for our listeners who might not be as familiar with the geography that Don boss is a south Eastern region of Ukraine, where there are a large number of Russian separatists or separatists who would like to be part of Russia.

And as part of the 2014 invade. Crimea Putin also gave support to these separatists, which what’s your D what’s your explaining created in a sense, a quagmire for him, Michael, is that fair? Yes. Or at the very least a useless appendage, she pays a price in sanctions. There are source of crime and instability in Russia itself because the gangsters who are gathered there, they sort of spill back over into Russian.

And it doesn’t give him what he wants. You know, Ukraine is not changing its calculus based on the Donbass. Uh, and you know, the U S is not changing his calculus based on that. So it’s a lever that doesn’t do anything, uh, and he still pays a price for it. So that’s a, that’s a pretty bad deal. I’m putting.

I’m sure we want to talk a little bit more of course, about the present situation and possible future scenarios. But I do want to take a step back first for a second. Where does Putin’s policy in the middle east in particular in Syria fit into this story? Well, this worries me a lot, uh, in the present moment.

And it’s one of the reasons why I wanted to write the piece in foreign affairs and lay out the reasoning that Putin might use for a real war, a real, you know, sort of major. Uh, in Europe, uh, but of course on the territory of Ukraine. So Soviet union had a longstanding relationship with Syria going back to the 1970s of military cooperation and shared basing and such, and, um, you know, Putin watched with great discontent as the Arab spring, unfurled around the middle east, uh, and, uh, watch with great discontent as well when the Arabs.

Uh, reached Syria and threatened the political prospects, uh, of Putin’s with a friend and ally Bashar al-Assad, uh, in Syria. And so in the summer of 2015, Russia made, uh, quite a bold military move, uh, and brought air power into Syria. And I think by most assessments changed the direction of the civil war in Syria made it possible for us to, uh, to hang on, uh, and sort of dash the hopes that the U S had.

A different kind of government in Syria. But more than that, I think what puts an acquired, I feel this is close to a sort of factual truth. It’s not just a perception when he acquired was a lot more leverage in the middle east. So he was treated with a new kind of respect. He was able to develop his relationships with the Gulf Arab states.

He was able to develop this relationship with Netanyahu in Israel, who he had over a barrel because of Russian air power, uh, in Syria, he was able to expand arm sales, uh, throughout the middle east based on the Russian military event. Uh, in Syria. So it was win-win really for Putin, he paid a pretty small price.

It was not that costly. And he got the leverage that he’s always seeking on the international stage. What worries me is that he’ll apply a similar logic to Ukraine. They, the west, they’re not going to listen to us. Nobody’s going to take us seriously in this country. If we just make a case for ourselves, we can go to the UN and say what, what it is that we want for Ukraine, but it’s not going to go with.

And if we just try to convince secretary Blinken and president Biden, that Ukraine should be made a neutral country, made it to a neutral country. It should be Finland diarized in the language of the cold war. It’s not going to go anywhere. And probably Putin is right. If he makes the verbal case for that, uh, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s not.

So Putin could conclude from that, that what gives me leverage is military power. And when I use it, uh, that’s what gives me a seat at the table. That’s what gives me a vote. Now, of course, Ukraine is very different from Syria and there are lots of ways in which that analogy, uh, might break down. But if he does apply that logic, I think we’re in for a variable.

A couple of months or the work could be next year or the year after it doesn’t have to be this winter. But, uh, if, if he does decide to go to war, uh, I would worry greatly, uh, that he would do so because he’s learned the lessons. I was just describing a moment ago from his intervention in. Well, and I guess that comes at a core question.

Michael has has American policy and for that matter European policy as well, has it reinforced the perception on Putin’s part that the countries to his west will only take him seriously and only compromise if he uses for. It’s an irony, if that’s true. And I don’t know if it’s true, but it’s an irony if it’s true, because I’ve read, I think a dozen op-eds in the last 48 hours, that’s the only language that puts in understands, uh, is forest.

And so therefore it’s necessary to arm Ukraine and type of, or perhaps even send troops for the U S to Ukraine because that’s what will, uh, get Putin, uh, that will get put into, uh, to listen. Um, You know, Putin has said when it comes to, for example, the open door policy of NATO, which is that every country has a right to join.

Uh, and you can’t sort of forswear or qualify that, uh, Putin has said, it sounds to him like a broken record. Every time he hears that, like he just can’t get, uh, he can’t get through. So I think on a handful of issues, he does feel like there’s just no diplomatic wiggle room. Uh, and so he might have to resort to, to forests, but I do think that Putin all.

Knows that if you widens the war on Ukraine, it carries enormous risk for him. Uh, it doesn’t, there’s no guarantee that he would win any kind of occupation of Ukraine, uh, could be terribly bloody, uh, and, uh, horrific. In fact, if Putin, uh, creates a much larger quagmire for himself and Ukraine, Really fall from power to think in this case at the 1905 war between Russia and Japan, which is a prelude to the Russian revolution, Nicholas, the second, uh, you know, sort of destroys himself or an example that Putin would be closer to the Afghan war for the Soviet union, which is, uh, an ingredient in the demise of the Soviet union.

So in that sense, I think puttin probably would not want to subscribe to resolutely to the notion that all the west understands is for us. I think he would like to a little bit, as he did today. Mix the language of force with the language of persuasion and see where it gets him and if he can get what he wants without having to use the forest, you know, sort of wonderful.

But I think he’s going to up the ante now and threaten for us more because he’s so frustrated within his terms, how little he’s gotten from, you know, rhetoric and, and what we might think of as conventional deploy. Well, Michael, I think that’s a perfect place to transition to our current moment. And you made reference to the virtual summit, the two hour discussion that occurred, uh, between, uh, president Biden and, uh, Vladimir Putin today.

Um, uh, how do we understand the relationship today? What are the possibilities? This is a case, I think where the historical framework you’ve given us, which is incredibly helpful. Shows how complicated policy-making is. There’s not an obvious pathway forward there. Isn’t a clear, missed opportunity that I’ve heard you talk about nor is there a clear alternative to the uncertainties, insecurities and conflicts that have been pervasive in this relationship?

So, so, so how do we understand our current moment and what are the options on the table, at least from Washington’s point? Yeah. I’ll start on a positive note. I don’t feel very optimistic about what’s what’s coming for us and I’ll try to lay out the reasons for that pessimism in just a moment. But I’ll start with, with, with a bit of optimism.

I think one of the good things to observe in the last say eight, nine months is that Putin and Biden seem to be capable of a working relationship and Jeremy you and I both know as historians students with the cold. Uh, that hasn’t always been the case. Truman didn’t have that with Stalin, um, uh, you know, various, uh, Soviet leaders in the early eighties.

Didn’t have that with Reagan. Uh, it’s, it’s not to be taken for granted and in the history of U S Russian relationship, broadly speaking it, you know, uh, a personal sort of working connection can go along with. Uh, and I think Biden is very skilled at not stigmatizing Putin, verbally, not directly. He’s very skilled at treating him in a sense, at least, you know, sort of as the optics go as an equal.

Uh, and he sort of invites that working relationship. And I think Putin in his own ways, he’s very respectful, uh, in his public statements about, by not about American politics, not about the United States, but about Biden has been respectful so far. So. I don’t know where that will take us, but that is a very valuable attribute of the current situation, especially, uh, in the current situation.

The reason I’m pessimistic is sort of is, is, is, is structural. Exactly there. Isn’t an easy, missed opportunity that the U S. Uh, correct. Uh, and NATO membership is a bit of a red herring here. I think Putin has been very explicit in the last couple of months. It’s not just NATO membership that angers him.

It’s the tightening military relationship between the United States, uh, and Ukraine, which you don’t need NATO for that. But you have exercises going on. You have weapons that are being sent. You have training exercises. Uh, that relationship is clearly ongoing and developing and Putin, uh, really objective.

But I don’t think Biden is going to reverse that sort of pull back, uh, and you know, sort of end that relationship. I don’t see how we get to get away with that politically. I don’t think he wants to do it, and I don’t think he wants to do it because Putin is pressuring him to do it. And I also don’t think that Putin is going to change his mind.

I think what Putin has laid out in the last year, which is a very aggressive interpretation of the, of the current situation. I think he believes it. I don’t think these are empty threats and I don’t think he’s gathering soldiers at the time. Um, you know, on a whim, uh, I think it’s all very, very seriously attended.

So if Biden is not going to back down and Putin is not going to back down, what’s going to happen. I think we’re clearly on a collision course. I think the best we can hope for under those circumstances, uh, is that Biden would, as I believe he did today, layout. What the U S red lines are, uh, and layout the basic outlines of what his response will be.

Us has lots of economic tools that they’re not using lots of sanctions and other kinds of tools that could be used. And I think Biden sort of threw the book at Putin today, uh, in that regard. And, you know, there are other ways in which the U S could cause real problems for Russia in the event of a, uh, of a wider war.

The assumption I’m making here is that Biden is not going to get directly. Uh, in a war between Ukraine and Russia, that he’s going to hold back militarily, but he’ll sort of push on, uh, on other fronts. So I think you do that first, but at the same time, I think the us needs to show leadership and imagination when it comes to diplomacy.

You know, the us has not been involved in the diplomacy around Ukraine. They sort of outsourced it to put it a little bit in politely to France and Germany who have done very little in Europe is, you know, basically passive and absent at the moment, which is harder. Uh, to observe, but us holds the major cards in this situation.

So they should really push, you know, bring, puts into Washington, uh, and have them talk about Europe. And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But sort of, so be it, uh, think in somewhat new terms, are there ways of reconfiguring these structures, uh, around NATO, there may be other ways of using diplomatic finesse, uh, to alter the dynamic with some of these things.

I mean, the basic fact of the matter is that the United States does not want you to. Uh, in NATO. So there’s an absurdity, uh, to, uh, to this back and forth in a way, can we cut through that absurdity in a creative way? Uh, that’s also, you know, sort of honors Ukraine’s, uh, you know, basic needs for, for, for sovereignty and statehood, uh, et cetera.

You know, I don’t have the perfect answers there. I think they’re very hard to locate define, but my point would be use everything you have at the moment to search for those answers because the alternatives are so are so high. So that’s what I would advise, you know, strong, you know, clear a set of, of punitive measures that would be taken in the inventive in the event of greater violence, but also imagination, energy, creativity, and American diplomacy in this area.

We haven’t seen that much of it for the last 10 years. It’s such a good point. Uh, and the imagination and creativity can be things that the personal, as well as at the state to state level. Um, and. The, the elements of preserving the status quo sound very much like containment in many respects, right? Just keeping the situation where it is or to quote Zachary’s poem, maintaining the most careful stalemate.

I mean, I think that’s what you see as the optimum outcome here, right? Michael? Yes. Uh, is, uh, is a very good point. I think that in the history of diplomacy, it’s rare for a problem really to get solved. And maybe that was to come full circle in our conversation. That was the fallacy of the 1990s, more so than hubris and arrogance.

It was just that we thought that we had solved the problem. You know, how ridiculous in retrospect nobody’s ever solved the problem of how to organize Europe. It’s always been a patchwork quilt of ethnicities and nation states and empires, and there’s always. Uh, been conflict, but, um, you know, a careful stalemate and channeling somebody you’ve written extensively on, uh, Jeremy, the, the, the spirit of Henry Kissinger in this respect, we could go back through Kissinger really to Bismarck and think about the kinds of stalemates that he, uh, that he structured.

So maybe we could incentivize Russia into a stalemate that I think would be a good. Yes, that, that sounds like the, the height of real politic in fact, uh, and it makes a lot of sense, Zachary, uh, for, for young listeners and, and those like yourself who care a lot about foreign policy and having an idealistic agenda wants to see the world made a better place, wants to see dictators overthrown, want to see some fruition.

Greater democracy and, uh, addressing climate change and all these other things is a, is a stalemate enough. And, and, and if it’s the best we can do, how do we, how do we convince ourselves and educate ourselves in this area to pursue that? Well, I think at the very least it’s possible. Um, I think that my generation and, and, uh, and the generation before mine has, unlike, unlike our parents and generations before us, we don’t have that real sense of rivalry and antagonism with Russia.

And. And the former Soviet union that for, for decades was ingrained in American society. And so I think there is opportunity for cooperation and creativity within that framework. But I, I don’t think we’re going to see some, some, some grand kumbaya moment in the next year. No international politics, as Michael said, a few minutes ago, rarely has anything close to a kumbaya.

It may might have a, oh my gosh moment. Uh, or another word I was thinking of that we won’t use, but, uh, it doesn’t have kumbaya very often. Michael, I think that that sort of leads us to our final question for you. And one that we frequently ask, you know, what, what can our listeners do to better inform themselves and better prepare themselves?

Those who can. About these incredibly complex issues issues that the average citizen really doesn’t have much influence over. Uh, nonetheless, how can an engaged democratic citizenry be better prepared? What would you recommend? The first point? I would make it and it, and it follows from what’s accurate.

Just said a moment ago, the Zachary said that he didn’t have the sort of his generation didn’t have the personal experience of the cold. Rivalry that you Jeremy and I, uh, had, uh, when we were kids, uh, you know, we can remember the film the day after and, uh, you know, all of the high points that are cultural high points of the, uh, of the, uh, of the cold war, none of us, Michael, please don’t forget the important Rocky movie where he knocks out the Russian Firefox and, you know, and on and on, it went to red Dawn and, you know, Um, the whole panoply of that, of that stuff that we just absorbed as, uh, as kids, but none of us has a memory of the second world war.

So at this moment I feel compelled to sort of go back, uh, and even get away from history and think of a film like grand illusion, uh, or all quiet on the Western front. Uh, and we need to remind ourselves, uh, every diplomat should be doing this constantly. The of us, those of us who engage in these questions, diplomacy and international affairs, where we need to remind ourselves that the office of war and that has to compel in us a kind of seriousness, a kind of, uh, uh, desire, even if we know some of the problems to be, you know, sort of ultimately insoluble, uh, but a desire to do our best, uh, and also to preserve to the extent we can without a piece mint and without knife tape.

Uh, the preconditions for a four piece. So I would put that front and center in terms of how we approach this question, because peace really cannot be taken for granted. And it’s sort of a second point that I’ll make, and I hate melodrama and I hate her verbally, but I’m going to engage in some here. If puttin begins a wider war, he’s going to have very little capacity to control it.

Uh, and. You know, that will be true for perhaps you crane instead of other countries in the, in the, in the surrounding area. But it’s a very, very scary prospect because I would be surprised to pull into the Baltic republics. If there were a really were a really big war between Ukraine and Russia that they would want to jump in and they would not just want to send, uh, ammunition and, and, uh, and material to Ukraine, they would want to fight.

Uh, and if that’s the case, then I think Russia could have. Drawn into a war with some of these countries. And we’ve got really something resembling, uh, the first world war, uh, here in our, uh, faltering, but also glittering, uh, 21st century. So we have to have that imagination of, uh, of disaster. We have to be able to think in those terms, I think to have.

The opposite reaction to that, which is the desire to, uh, to really work on the problem. So I will fall to our policymakers and I will include myself in this category from 2014 to 2016. I think we didn’t work hard enough on Ukraine. I think that the crisis came and the sort of fighting passed by 2015, uh, and this, you know, not very careful stalemates.

And we just didn’t do enough on it. So let’s scare ourselves to a degree. Let’s remind ourselves of how important piece is for every good agenda. That’s out there from dealing with climate change, to issues of social equity, uh, and other things. Uh, and let’s, you know, sort of do all of that for the sake, not of passively staring at this problem, but of thinking of, uh, of, of, of active solutions.

And that should be a kind of synergy, I think, between the citizens that you engage in your. Uh, and the makers who are hard at work here in wash. Uh, addressing this very issue, you know, it’s so well said, Michael, and, and inspiring what you’ve just laid out. Uh, it reminds me of, uh, one of my favorite passages from George Kennan’s writing about American diplomacy, right?

Where he talks about the United States is a large dinosaur. That’s very comfortable and it’s in its habitat and it takes a lot. It has to be whacked. To actually wake up and, and Ukraine seems far away. Russia seems so far away. Uh, and it’s good that we don’t think in cold war terms that Zachary made that point very well, but I think you’ve also pointed out that, that we have such a strong interest in stability in this part of the world and being more engaged and at least more informed decisions.

Uh, and electing people who at least take these issues seriously. Uh, I’m not sure there’s an easy solution, but we at least need people in office, in Congress and elsewhere who are serious about these issues. That’s probably a good, a good place to start and maybe a little concerned about the future in this area.

We’ll encourage that kind of attention in our politics. Right? Take, take nothing for granted. Uh, and you know, let’s have a good period. Now there may well be a sort of. Uh, in, uh, in the tension. So let’s, let’s use this as a period of deliberation. Uh, and you know, very serious and careful, of course, historically informed, uh, discussion, uh, and on that basis, sort of move forward with, uh, with the word of today’s conversation with, with creativity, creativity, and, and careful stalemate is that GRI has, has told us, uh, Michael, thank you so much as always.

Provided us a rich historical context. You’ve also given us insights into how that context matters for today. And you’ve given us some inspiring thoughts on at least how, how we can begin to design or create some kind of pathway forward. I thank you so much. Thank you. Two such careful hosts, uh, good could result in no intellectual stalemate.

So I have to thank, uh, with, with, uh, you know, with, with, with great, great fondness for you both. And I want to encourage all of our listeners to read Michael’s most recent book, the abandonment of the west. Many of the themes we’ve talked about actually come through there and his most recent article co-written with Michael Kaufman in foreign affairs.

Russia won’t let Ukraine go without a fight that was published in a. November of 2021, Zachary. Thank you for your scene setting and thought-provoking poem as always. And thank you most of all, to our loyal listeners for joining us for this week of this is democracy.

This podcast is produced by the liberal arts, its development studio and the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. The music in this episode was written and recorded by Harris. Codine stay tuned for a new episode every week. You can find this is democracy on apple podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.

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