atlantic council. ♪

>> good afternoon here in washington. good evening to our virtual viewers in europe. my name is john herbst, i run the eurasia center at the atlantic council. this is a very good day for the atlantic council and for american understanding of russia. the eurasia center is launching a new series of papers on russia tomorrow. we are doing this because russia, under putin, poses the greatest short-term threat to the united states.

of course, china is the greater long-term threat because it enjoys a real economy, which russia does not. and russia has been signaling this threat for well over a decade. and the u.s. academic community and political/policy committee have been slow to realize it. so, with this series of paper, we are going to be taking a close look at russia, both the and foreign policy, in order to draw an accurate picture and a proper conclusion of the jet -- of the danger that russia represents. we have a paper today that leads us off, written by a brilliant young american scholar on the five scenarios for russia's future. but one of the strengths of our program is what we bring into

it, serious russian analyst, many associated with the political opposition in russia, but independent-minded, which means it is hard for them to work under the russian think tanks, which ultimately must answer to the kremlin. after casey's paper, which you will hear about today, we will have -- riding on putin's inner circle. after that we will have him riding on russia's oil and gas industries, with lots more papers to come. i welcome you in-house audience and virtual audience for the start of with will be a vigorous academic look into russia. over to you. brian: good afternoon, everybody or good evening to our online viewers in europe. i am resident senior fellow here and editor of this russia tomorrow series. what would russia look like in 10 years, 50, 20, how much

longer will his two decade plus rule last? who or what will come after him? will russia continue its anti-russian course? will russia remain intact or will it disintegrate like the soviet union before it? how should the united states and our allies prepare for all of these contingencies. these questions are all just in the report we are launching today, five scenarios for russia's future by casey michelle, who i consider to be one of the most thoughtful and outside the box thinkers. for those of you who don't know his work, he stood director at the human rights foundation, as well as a writer and investigative journalist working on topics ranging from illicit finance, dark money, foreign lobbying, foreign interference in the legacies of russia and soviet colonialism. this first book examines how our

country helped enable the corruption and autocracy in the former soviet space and in his forthcoming book it continues to explore along the same theme. over to you. >> thank you so much. out-of-the-box, one of the kindest things i have ever heard. good afternoon and good evening to everyone. before i begin i want to thank the entire team for hosting this event today. i love this fantastic series of paper -- papers. i especially want to thank for the opportunity to discuss this topic as far as i'm concerned. hard to ignore, even after the past two years. that is the future of russia. it is discussing the future of ukraine for the rightful place. we have spent strangely little time discussing what the potential and future for russia entails let alone what it means for the rest of us in some of

the topline findings of this paper and some of the contours of russia's potential with this likely course. since there's plenty about that in the paper itself, i would like to pull back a little bit and talk about the clear lessons i found when putting this paper together, and how that can help inform our strategy moving forward. so, first things first, what are the five scenarios at this paper deals with? the first is, unfortunately, the easiest to digest. and that is, putin's continued rule. with presidential elections upcoming, no organized oppositions to be found. and with renewed optimism in moscow, there is little reason to think putin will continue steering the kremlin to the foreseeable future. that is easy to imagine. that's what we have been dealing with for years. in terms of future scenarios,

things get a little bit murky, which brings us to the second scenario. who in ousted followed by the installation of a nationalistic regime. it is easy to envision some kind of redux of the quad sign now -- because i mutiny/push from last year. after all, all of the ingredients are there. frustration with putin's invasion continued stripping of russia in men and materials for this quagmire with the spiraling wealth inequality that has launched populist and revolutionaries the world over. while still there. and while he never made it to moscow, it wasn't for lack of trying. as we know, the kremlin was by and large open and if he accomplished anything, and i apologize for this image, he revealed putin was a czar with no close. the third scenario also deals with putin's oust her death in

office but with a different technocratic regime emerging. not a democratic one, but one that admits to broader failures of policy in ukraine and the return to a status quo, antebellum. if only their west lifted sanctions and its price cap policy. it is a regime that wants, in a term we will all be familiar with, what it calls a reset. as you will see in the paper, this is a scenario i fear the most. we will once more in depth with western politicians suckered in by this kind of rhetoric, convinced that russia has finally changed, all while ignoring the lessons we have supposedly learned over the past few decades. the fourth scenario is perhaps the least likely in the short to medium-term, but it is also one. brian, you and i were talking about this the other day, i am being foolishly naive to even consider. however, i still feel it's a

guaranteed time horizon. and that is russia's democratic transition. i know this is unlikely in the next few years. but even as a languish in jail and as russia's democratic opposition remains smothered, if we pull -- if we pull back, i think it's relatively easy to see how this might end up coming about. after all, this is the story of every other european empire prior. colonial failures, forced regimes to give up dreams of empire. and as a result, democratic response flourish. does the story we saw with the united kingdom battered by irish republicans and indian patriots. it's a story we saw with the french undone by algerian and vietnamese forces and it was a story we saw in portugal after those in angola and mozambique finally evicted their former colonizers. it is a story we may yet see if,

and this is a big if, we do everything we can to help ukraine beat back russian invaders and reclaim every square inch of sovereign territory. those are for scenarios. the fifth and final one is something of an inverse of this story of democratic transition. because there is another path that these kinds of colonial legacies can point to in which russia has already dealt with in its past. it's a civil war, it's a state fracture. this is for certain colonies that consider part of the russian federation freedom. it's impossible to tell with the sparks of this may be. perhaps it's the death in the sparking of the third war. it's protests erecting with the socket directed at putin's war machine and predicated on colonial legacies that have never been dealt with. or perhaps it's something else entirely, which we still cannot see coming because we are so

focused on moscow because so many of us who follow moscow generally only speak russian. we don't speak the language, which means we will miss it when it's on top of us. this fit scenario is an out-of-the-box outcome that many of us refused to treat and refuse to consider. but it is one that, thanks to putin's policies and russia's refusal to recognize itself as a colonial power, is increasingly likely. the more i dive into the histories of russia's internal college, more inescapable it becomes. the more i read on anti-russian programs, the more i read about the broken pledges of sovereignties, the more i read about the unfulfilled promises of an independent army all while it is stripped of its natural wealth. the more you realize these tensions are just waiting to return. the more you realize these legacies may be out of sight, but they are not out of mind. so those are the five scenarios.

the paper has much more about that. i'm sure we will talk about all of these in today's conversation. with a few final minutes i want to discuss the clearest lessons i have learned when putting this paper together. that is, we can no longer afford the kinds of failures of imagination that we have experienced over and over again for decades about what is in store for moscow in the russian federation as a whole. this goes all the way back to the late cold war. i just finished off a separate paper looking at the century long history of u.s. policy regarding ukraine, including the late 1980's, early 1990's, even though i knew this history, i was absolutely floored, as i often him, about how staggeringly blind washington was to this staggering dissolution. again, this is no one's fault, this is across the board. you even had figures that was right about so much else as late

as december 1990, saying the ukrainians would never leave the soviet union, they would never felt themselves out, you should count on one hand the number of people that saw the soviet crackup coming, that's only one chapter, i don't again need to tell you how many people saw the authoritarianism, the invasion or ukrainians fighting back as much as they did, it is a constant failure of imagination that has led us to dead end after dead end and has kept us on the back foot for decades. it has kept us reactive and has led directly to disaster, which is why, now, right now is the perfect time to flex these muscles that we haven't used in years. now is the inflection point, now is the pivot point for everything that comes next. look at where we are in ukraine. in ukraine, russia has lost more troops, magnitudes more troops and the soviets lost in afghanistan, more than in all the wars moscow has been involved in since world war ii. in the last six or seven months,

we saw an unprecedented mutiny or push in which a renegade militia nearly marched on moscow. police are rampaging anti-semitic riots in which security services were no where to be found. we have seen protests erupt. linkedin part to -- following the day today news cycles, it is easy to forget all of this and to forget just how destabilized putin's regime suddenly is. it is difficult at times to even imagine it. which is what i hope this paper will help us do, as well as a series of papers that are set to come out, as that is -- instead of focusing on infighting in washington and brussels and focusing on the small movements on the front line in ukraine and focusing on putin's looming reelection, i am hoping that this paper will help us take a beat and assess where we are and where we are going.

because if only imagining these potential futures we can prepare accordingly in considering what comes next, what can come next, what will come next that weekend, for the first time in a long time finally be prepared. so i will stop there. amb. herbst: thank you, -- >> thank you, i told you he was an outside the box thinker. each of these scenarios have contingencies, they are spelled out in the paper. we can flush them out of people are interested in that. first i want to introduce our excellent panel here. with us online is angela. who is a nonresident senior fellow at the brookings institute and a senior advisor at the united states institute of peace. in the one and only media and democracy fellow at harvard university, and of course sitting with us here at the table is ambassador john herbst, the former united states

ambassador to ukraine and uzbekistan. i wanted to open it up with one question that i want to ask everybody. and i'm a little selfish here, this is something i'm struggling with myself as we look through the process of change in russia. the question is this. many of us look at russia and we see a web of entrenched patient client networks and deeply seated local pressure of autocratic rule. a lack of viable institutions. the absence of the rule of law. a weak society. we come to the conclusion that nothing meaningful will ever really change. we see a russia that has remained, in its essence, in the essence of our rule and in the former government, the very safe from the russian empire to the soviet union and the russian federation. the external forms may have changed, but the essence of arbitrary are good article rule

has changed. we made this mistake in 1991, do we risk making this mistake again, the staking changing of the facade for a changing of the essence as we did in 1991. do we risk making this mistake when putin departs, or does the deep-seated cynicism that i just expressed risk dismissing real change, should it actually come? you are both sitting there patiently as we are all yapping over here, so i want to actually go to you. why don't start with you, do we risk mistaking fig change for real change or does the cynicism risk missing real change,? >> thank you very much for inviting me to this panel.

to be honest with you, i think that we have yet to do good due diligence. we have yet to understand what has happened in russia. i think it's a little bit too early to jump in those scenarios. you know how easy it is to make predictions, but i think that the most important thing now is first to understand war did happen. just russia put a wall and it was easy to expect authoritarian rule. but many of us didn't expect russia to get into full-scale war with the rest of the war, especially ukraine, etc.. so i think that is the most

important thing to do. i read through the paper. i find all those scenarios not possible. but, i guess, once again, as i said, i don't know how to do the crystal ball, but i do understand, clearly, that the lack of understanding of the past with the future. the lack of understanding of the institutional civic union, led to the mistake of the 1990's, with respect of the west to the respect of the kind of risks that were first seen back then. and i'm afraid that we are going to -- that wayne -- that we may go into the same trap now. it may start with all kinds of

imaginary scenarios as opposed to starting the past and contemporary reality. >> i want to give you a chance to respond before i move on. >> thank you, brian. i think that is a point well taken. if we don't understand where we are, we don't understand where we thinned and don't understand where we are going. my argument in this paper is we have seen plenty of focus on where we are in plenty of focus on where we have been. and in recent history, the problem than being that leaves us in a reactive rather than proactive stay in the point of the paper itself is to outline potential scenarios moving forward that will help inform our current understanding, as well as provide some agility, some nimbleness. both in the policy spaces in the broader strategic space about whether russia is going forward. i think the scenarios are more plausible than others in the

near term. i don't know that i agree that they are all implausible. >> i will drill down on which ones are more or less plausible. i want to bring angela into the conversation. you were in government the last time we went through a change in russia. how do we distinguish between real change and superficial change that's just on the surface. do we risk the problem of essentialism saying that russia will never change or lead us to cynicism that it will change? i think you are muted. >> thank you for including me in this discussion. i think the first point to make is, just to emphasize again, it's very hard to understand what's happening in russia or how the russian system functions from the outside. i think even from the inside, it's difficult for some

russians, although they may be understand it instinctively, and i think it was pub lasky who said, those who talk don't talk -- don't know and those who know don't talk. thinking about this question reminded me of my former harvard professor in his brilliant article. indeed, you are right. you can go back to the medieval times and you look at the system where few men ruled the country. they understood what the rules were until the rules changed. they made sure that even if they had a weak one, to make the outside world think it was a strong czar. this is really order with no civil liberty. you had cycles throughout russian history, whether this breaks down, there's a result -- revolt, whatever, things change for a wild, within the system always comes clawing back. that obviously is what happened. you had much more pluralism and

a breakdown of this autocratic system. and then of course it came clawing back and we see it now. what should be look for to find real change? i consider myself may be a realistic optimist. that is, i don't think russia is doomed always to have this kind of government. although, history has to make one very cautious about this. i think the mistake we made in 1991 in the west, was thinking that communism was gone, russians wanted freedom, they wanted democracy, they wanted something completely different. we thought it was going to happen very quickly. i think partly, this comes back to policymakers because, the current administration knew it was going to be four years or eight years, and they wanted these changes to happen quickly, while they are in office.

and of course it takes a very long time for these changes to take roots. i don't know which we could talk about, which one of these scenarios is more likely. i think these were just going to a point. i think it's highly likely that putin will be in power until 2030. we could talk about the other ones afterwards, but i think the kinds of things we have to look for, if there was a change in government, is obviously how it occurred, and clearly, who took over. some would say, a power struggle following something happening that would be difficult to figure out how this was going on. we are more bystanders in this in that kind of scenario. >> thank you, angela. i decided you quoted professor edward keenan. everyone should read the book if they haven't. i want to bring in -- he has

been quoted he said when putin falls, he will fall one day and he will be replaced by something exactly like him. i wanted you to weigh in on this question of essentialism and real versus fake change. surface change versus a change of essence. your thoughts on that. john herbst i don't think we should deny the difference between soviets russia. the mobilization of the soviet people under stalin and his successors, was a massive effort, which included people on a historic scale, whether you talk about the brutalities of

collectivization, of the purchase, and of other things that came after that. putin is kind of a stall in many -- stalin mini me. in russia is not as dangerous to the world, at least in terms of capacity, as the soviet union was. but, it is true that this certain forms of russian political culture, going back centuries, characterized both soviet power and putin's russia power. the opaqueness of decision-making, the relatively small number of hands that play a role. the use of massive public information campaigns and repression to achieve regime goals, to keep those outside of

power, outside of power. those things remain. and, understanding that. that means in terms of foreign policy because putin has returned to an aggressive foreign policy. in fact, putin is a greater risk taker than stalin was. it makes that respect more dangerous than stalin. we need to be prepared for this. i can link this conversation or take this conversation and talk about russia's future, but maybe this is not the time to do that. you decide, you are the moderate -- moderator. >> you decide, you are the boss. amb. herbst: you decide. >> we can drill as we go forward. i know you and i have discussed this in the podcast, do you have any thoughts? >> it's an unanswerable question and it's what are we talking about. russian essentialism, does that include populations like those in chechnya, maybe we will table

that for right now. i do think it might be worth including consideration conversation. we are talking about historical analogy, historical precedents and patterns that play out vis-a-vis the soviet union on the russian federation. i do think it's considering -- worth considering compared to this approach compared to other imperial and post-imperial states. i cannot help thinking that we are having this conversation and not necessarily 20 or 25 years ago. we were sitting at this table in washington in 1935 having conversations about the immutability of -- maybe invisibility of this notion of a russian totalitarianism in whatever guise it may take. i think a lot of folks will look around the table and say, it's all fine and good, it's all fine and true. we met his way of -- might as well say the same thing about berlin, lisbon, spain.

obviously there are substantial geopolitical development since 1935. all of this to say, it does say to prepare for the essentialism that appears until one day it's not. >> and these same discussions as you point out were once made. >> the german people will never support democracy because it's not in their political culture or political dna, pick a term. >> the reason i asked this question is, this is something i struggle with. it's important. i want to direct the next -- going to the second round of questions, to john and angela because you both have served in government. imagine if you were in a world in which putin was replaced by a more pluralistic regime. be a technocratic or liberal. how cautious or how bold should do united states and its allies be in its response? should we give them the benefit of the doubt, or should be follow the twist on ronald

reagan's famous trust but verify. how quickly should be moved to this direction when we turn to dust return to business as usual? should we return to business as usual? what should the benchmarks be? what are the lessons we have learned from political change from the 1980's and early 1990's? amb. herbst: i was working in the part of the department responsible for the entire post-soviet era from 1994-1997. a partial bet, thank god it was only a partial bet, was made on the concepts that russia was as much as all the other nations that emerge from the soviet rubble, a victim of communism, and that russia would be a good partner for us and a very

energetic effort was made to pursue that vision as seen by the a program we pushed with russia, as seen by welcoming russia into the g7, as seen by the development of the nato/russian relationship. it was a partial bet. there was a large debate within the administration. much of which has been captured in books on the subject. in ultimately, a second school of thought when the debate regarding nato. in part, that selected the ardent efforts of warsaw pact states to get into the nato tents because they feared kremlin revisionism and american politics played into that. but in part, even some folks who

had always been associated with a softer approach towards moscow, even in soviet times. my xbox understood that a hedge between bad russians historic practice was not a bad thing. thank god we had did that otherwise their world we would focus on today would be in poland rather than in ukraine. i think that kind of understanding is extremely relevant to the conversation we are having today. and let me just make one more point regarding russian essentialism. i think that truly history is the best guide to the future, but not the only guide. in fact, the point that casey made regarding doubts regarding the ability to be a democracy, circa 1940 five, was evidenced by the -- plan, which think god

does not implement -- implemented. demonstrates that. the nasty governance that has characterized russia for centuries is what we should expect going forward, including that foreign policy component. it's worth pointing out that it was moscow's greatest historian who said something like, when the russian people suffer, russia marches abroad, making the connection between internal authoritarianism and external aggression. having said all that, let me throw out an insight which pushes very hard in the other direction. i don't think the russian people in the russian leaders are stupid. let's start with that. and i suspect that if you look at how the world works today, a country will only prosper if it

opens itself up to interchange across the global society, especially the global economy. to do that effectively, you have to open up opportunities for your people, and you cannot micromanage. either the pot -- micromanage either the politics of urination or the economy of your nation. i think a lot of russians don't understand that. and if they do understand that, there's no way russia could remain a great power, and less it adapts to this new reality. you can see the path toward a liberal, somewhat liberal, less aggressive russia in the future. and let me throw out the think tank in moscow when i continued -- i continue to quote, although he is currently in his neanderthal stage. at the same time i took this job, which was almost 10 years

ago, i read a book hero circa 2002. and it was something like, goodbye and he laid out this dreadful historic pattern of russian governance and aggressive russian policy. we have to stop this stuff if we want to be great. he wrote that shortly before the unpleasantness began in ukraine, going back to the orange revolution. and then was a 180 degree turn in moscow in the wrong direction. he wrote that book without the core element of it. now he is in the stage excepting the political circumstances in russia. that's why i say, this type of thinking is seen in circles in russia where we don't expect to see enlightenment. but she knows more about this than i, maybe she can say this. >> i tend to look at him as a barometer. he said what he was supposed to say in the 1990's, now he's

saying what he supposed to say now. i would also like to add, my generation suffers from we will get food again syndrome. we got excited about political change, we thought it was the end of history at all, now we won't get fooled again. i'm always trying to check myself about being overly cynical. your thoughts on this, imagining, if you will, the scenario where a more pluralistic regime comes into power in russia. how cautious, how which of the benchmarks be for us? >> again, you were quoting president reagan trust but verify. i would be wary of making historical analogies with the british and french empires. france and great britain were democracies while they held economies.

it did not entail major changes in their domestic systems too. so i would agree with john that clearly any intelligence russian technocrat understands the real task at hand which putin has complete be avoided is to modernize russia -- to be less dependent on hydrocarbon exports. in order to do that, you have to have pretty good ties with the west, you have to be integrated into the global system, and this is what will be good for the russian people. but having said that, if we look at the hypothetical technocratic government that will come in, look at some of the key technocrats that we all knew.

all of these people despite the fact that they were part of the global elite and understood what was happening, the need for global integration, they have all buckled down since the war began and done with david to do, whether it is not pursuing economic assault -- policies you would not appreciate before, and even the one in charge of the occupied territories in ukraine, so even these technocrats can lose sight of that because of the bargain that they made with putin. in this scenario putin is gone. you have to wait and see what their policies are, and as casey says in this scenario they would not be liberal anymore, but at least they might understand they have to have further ties with the west. so you have to be cautious.

i think you would have to put some feelers out, and then if you believe that they are moving and a less direction, and you might begin to live some of the sanctions. you will not lift all of them immediately. there might be an argument to lift the financial systems early in order for the russian economy to be able to operate better. and if you think about these russians who cannot use their credit cards, it has been harder for the economy to function, but i would not remove all of the sanctions that once. and what with the benchmarks be? well, i think it key benchmark would be how they treat their people? do they release political prisoners? i agree with casey that this type of technocratic company would not reese navalny, but release these political

prisoners that have been jailed for their mild protest against the war. and then i think in general are they enabling civil society to open up? can the russians once again communicate with each other in ways that have been more difficult to do during this war? what about the internet? in other words the way they treat their own people. the way they interact with the outside world. i guess the assumption in the scenario is once the technocratic government is in power russia will have withdrawn from the occupied territories and ukraine. i do not know what that would look like if we do not know how the war would end, but the war would be over. one would have to look at that. another thing you would do is to put out some feelers to engage in the dialogue on issues like strategic stability which is something the regime will not talk about, because that is something in our interest, but it is in a rush is -- russia's

interest too. we get together as equals, and i think that is something that would be very advisable, but one would have to be cautious, because as you said you do not want to get cold again -- fooled again, and you also do not want to too soon get rid of the sentients before you know the government will move in the right direction, and the final point to make is we have to always remember, this was a mistake in the early 1990's, see the world very differently than russians do. we not only have to understand that, we have to put ourselves to the extent that we can in their frame and try to imagine how they see things in the outside world, and i think that will inform our actions better. >> thank you, and we will go very shortly to questions.

i want to bring one more back to if kenny -- yvgeny. a couple of questions are coming across my device. let's go to you with this question. more than a century ago someone famously said russian liberalism stops at the ukrainian border. in a scenario in which putin is replaced by a more liberal successor, do you see the imperial impulse of remaining, because of course he was a minister in the government that came to power at after the 1917 revolution. do you see this imperial impulse remaining, or would a defeat in ukraine deal a decisive blow to russia's imperial instincts? >> thank you very much.

what do you mean by imperial impulse? it is part of the putin's foreign policy and his desire to reinstate the empire, so therefore people who come after hime first of all, it is very interesting, we speak somewhere on the moon. it is to say the outcome of this war in europe and eventually the outcome of the kind of regime in

russia much depends upon the u.s. support to ukraine. we see just last week russians once again bombed ukrainian cities, but for the first time in almost a year there were victims, casualties in kyiv. it is to say ukrainians are lacking to protect the skies over the capitol. the kinds of weapons they are receiving, they cannot use. they are lacking shells. it is been already two years of all of this chitchat about upcoming delivery of f-16s. a year, there are talks about attacks.

i do understand that probably there is this idea to believe russia [indiscernible] as much as possible, and ukrainians are paying with their own lives for that desire. however, unfortunately, this is a very dangerous game which is played now. putin is bluffing, and he is an extremely successful lover -- b luffer. not just those stuck to russian propaganda tv, but even russians are now sort of waking up from all of this propaganda bluffing.

i read in the american newspapers and european newspapers that they are succumbing to putin's bluffing, that ukraine is unable to win the war, it is time to start negotiations, because otherwise it will be much worse, and there are talks. recently they said there were four meetings between parties with respect to possible negotiations. different capitals included, a saying that putin is ready for some truce or cease-fire, and if ukrainians will not go for that

now, and they also mean the united states is supposed to tell them what to do. and it is going to be much worse three months from now or six months from now. for those of us who are observers of the russian politics both from outside and inside, we do understand that putin's economy is in trouble, that even though he has managed to put on track many of these complex plans, still they do not have enough facilities and parts to produce as many weapons as they need at the front lines. russian soldiers are now

supplied with rifles made in 1946. in a recent essay published by foreign affairs, russians have lost 2/3 of the tanks, and they cannot reproduce as many of them now. so it is putin's guile to get it right in order for a year or so in order to bring -- sorry, in order for the russian economy -- >> i am going to take this to questions. >> sorry, someone is trying to

reach me from russia. [laughter] really, i am sorry. we will not allow ourselves to be fooled again. you are full to by yourselves by building these -- i am sorry i have to -- >> i need to take it to questions because we only have 10 minutes after the event, so i need to take this to questions now. john, you had a brief remark. >> just go to questions. >> yes, ariel? mic? >> [indiscernible] >> i got them. all right, the first question i will take from my former boss it ready for your. he said why not imagine a scenario in which an aging putin is shunted aside by a younger

and ambitious version by himself and things pretty much carry on as today? that is an interesting scenario. >> they are by no means meant to be exhaustive. god knows there were plenty other scenarios, thereafter when you consider there for potential policymakers as well. again, bringing this back to a comparative wrist models that we saw eve as recently as a few years ago in kazakhstan. moving forward, i would say that any kind of replacement for putin should they be propelled by similar conspiratorial nationalistic end, i certainly would suppose it will be a continuation of business as usual, but i have a more difficult time seeing the kind of buy-in from the inner circle, certainly those familiar with the kind of devastating impact the wars had on the russian body politic as well as russian economy. >> it is putinism without putin

argument. ariel, i wanted to go to you. you had the first and up. it is going to be online? i do not see it online. >> [indiscernible] >> what does wester's future mean for countries like estonia, georgia today? how can thinking about russia las vegas future forge better policies not just in washington but also other places? >> i think yvgeny made strong points which were not necessarily part of this panel, but we have been working on the atlantic council for years, so the analysis of some or is absolutely right. russia is celebrating problems in the u.s. congress. on your question, as it turns out all of the sophisticated thinkers in western europe and

the united states who for decades have poo pooed the concerns expressed by baltic friends and polish friends and remaining friends have proven to be wrong, and some of them have been sufficiently self-confident to make knowledge of this. the point is they understood what putin was up to long before chancellery's in europe and the united states did. their very lives depend upon a clear eyed analysis of what is going on in moscow, so if we were smart we would listen to more closely to them today, including on such important issues as ukraine joining nato. and there is been a partial recognition in washington d.c. and other capitals about feelings of other foster --

policies. more sophisticated versions of weapons to ukraine would not be an issue. >> you have experience also when other non-russian republics and soviet unions. >> john's point is absolutely well taken. i do not think is limited voices or policymakers in washington, certainly berlin and paris who have been sufficiently chastened, that i think that is a lesson that will not be forgotten for the foreseeable future. this gets back to the potential post putin regime. look at what we are saying, not so much what we are doing. i do not have much more to add. >> i believe we should listen very closely to what russia's neighbor say, and i'm actually getting ariel's question eventually.

why democracy in germany and france is even relevant to russia? is the question of germany and france even relevant given conditions after world war ii, occupation, and what about china pulling russia into its orbit? china has been the elephant in the room. >> i think it is a great question. a historic comparison is not without pitfalls. other former empires most exclusively in portugal and spain will without american occupation or at least in portugal's case whether that transition itself. i think the china question is something we have not talked about today, and i know the rabbinic verbal discussions about the role of wretch as a trend vision into a junior partner. in the third scenario, that is something officials can deal with as a rhetorical cudgel saying they do not want us to

become a junior partner of china. why don't you let us do what we want domestically so long as we pledge to not be beijing's junior partner? >> dan? >> this is a first-rate discussion. i went to tease out some of john herbst's lessons from the 1990's. in the 1980's there was skepticism in washington about whether gorbachev was for real. the essentialist's were in the majority. reagan overruled them because he saw the possibility of working with gorbachev. the essentialist said communism never changes and we are suckers , so that is a cautionary lesson. the scenario you said you fear the most was replacement of vladimir putin by a technocratic

regime. i get that, but i do not share it. john and i were on the old soviet desk at state. what we did with him was incremental and we were not intending to see the end of the soviet union, but it ended up very well. however, and john referred to this. what we did not do is sacrifice central and eastern europeans on the altar of good relations with opposed soviet russia, and that was the debate about nato, and it is obvious where i am going. much depends on what happens in ukraine. the way you deal with opposed putin -- post putin russia is whether they are out of ukraine? we have to neutralize them or we will never prevail against the hard-liners in russia. you have no deal, but do not

rule out incremental approaches with the new regime. this is a memory to the old people, all right. absolutely right to be wary of essentialism. radical change is the norm in russian politics for the last 40 years, and we should not rule out. last thought, i promise -- yeltsin failed because we were wrong about russia being liberated from communism. it was opposed imperial trauma, but if russia fails in ukraine, it may be that russian nationalism is discredited, and the plane will go to -- the b lame will go to putin. there is hope, but first help the ukrainians when.

-- win. >> i would like to bring you in first and then angela. >> i agree with dan's historically grounded comments and conclusions. and i just want to use this opportunity for something i should have done at the start. the problem of aggressive russian foreign policy should be item one on our national security agenda, and we need to understand the war in ukraine as in fact a subset of this problem , and to make this all the clearer, on february 14 along with another 10 or so think tanks in washington we are convening a conference on capitol hill urging a policy of containment for putin's russia, so we invite everyone to that event to hammer home some of the points yvgney made regarding the

dangers of moscow and making sure putin is thwarted in ukraine. >> we have two minutes to a hard stop. i want to bring in ambassador freed's remarks. >> i was in government when vladimir putin came to power, so we had all of these discussions. he had been prime minister, but when he was made president, who is he? in the beginning you have to remember he wanted to relations with the west. he met with the head of the world bank, other people. he made his speech into berlin, which was a very forward-looking, and i think at that point we were all open to seeing him as a younger, healthier leader of russia who might in fact bring it forward and modernize it. it turns out we were wrong. the question is should we have

seen it then? did he change? i think it is completely right, it is not helpful to be an essentialist, and you have to be cautious and to the new government, whatever it is a chance to prove itself. >> thank you, angela, and that is perfect timing. we are done. i want to thank everyone for attending, i want to thank our excellent panelists and first and foremost, the author of this great report. i recommend everybody read this and i look forward to future papers in this area. thank you. >> thanks for having me. [applause] ♪