now on book tv, iian berman predict the collapse of russia deutsch to the internal social democratic decline and external challenges from china. it's about one hour. thank you. i love that john is making his way off the stage so when you throw things at me there is an unimpeded gift. thank you as always for your interest and to the heritage foundation for hosting me. always nice to come out and talk about issues i work a lot on in the privacy of my office and i think i will share it with a broad audience. let me start where john ended which is to talk about the external first and focus on the internal. the question of russia and where

russia is heading not only ideologically but also geopolitically and demographically is something that i've spent a lot of time looking at both professionally and personally. my personal history is that i am the child of a soviet so i sort of have a culture in my blood. i have the language in my head most of the time. so i've spent quite a bit of time in russia so it really sort of allows you to get a different a bit of a sense. and what i am struck by is that historically and by historic we i don't mean by decades but certainly in recent years, we americans whether we are republican or democrat, we tend to look at russia as one that is striving very well on the world's stage and you just have to crack open a newspaper in the last couple of weeks and you will understand exactly why we do that. we have seen russian president vladimir putin cut quite a striking geopolitical the image

of strong warming us into the field of the syrian field strong farming is the wrong word because it suggests we were not willing. we were more than willing to accept a deal that walked off the ledge of the reaction against syria. by the way it is a deal that is very useful for the obama administration and i would argue for the russian federation because it enshrines the stability of the syrian regime. it was an open question that the regime might not be in power before it certainly not an open question now because we need him in power in order to provide us access with the chemical weapons we are supposed to dismantle. not only that, but for the russians all sorts of ancillary benefits because syria has been since 1971 the way station and the home port for russia's flotilla. so preserving the hold on power and preserving its stability is a huge coup for the russian

federation. it's the tangible benefits for us that still remain to be seen. from damascus, from the discussion about damascus you saw him jet off to tehran in which he talked about russia's cooperation with the nuclear program and the potential reactivation of the sale of controversial s 300 missiles to the iranian regime. something that was tabled during the medvedev era so again, not great progress but all of this is symptomatic i think of something that we were all sensing when we look at u.s. foreign policy. the policy the middle east is not very strategic at least as of late is not very assertive and as a result there has been an effort by russia, an opportunistic effort to take this advantage and the russian government has done i think a very successful job and as a result it projects an image of a country that is on the march.

but if you look at what's happening within russia itself, it's i think very clear that that perception is wrong. russia may appear stronger now internationally, but internally it's approaching a transformation. i would argue it's a transformation that is going to be one that sits in every bit as earth shattering as the collapse of the soviet union was from two decades ago. and this the people was the product of three trends that are beginning to emerge but are on the trajectory to intersect in a very dramatic way. the first is very simply that russia is dying demographically speaking. for those of you that are on demographers, first of all, good for you because it's not the most exciting of professions, but for those of you that hour you know 2.1 is the magic number. during the life span of a woman during the fertility life span

of a woman, she shed ostensibly create one child to replace herself and one to replace her husband and some fraction thereof to account for its natural disasters for earthquakes, hurricanes, what have you. and a population that sits at what is called replenishment rates. it's a population that remains stable over time. the united states is pretty much their. we can talk about sort of a driver's of what drives the u.s. population. but what is clear is that a whole bunch of countries certainly in europe are well below the replenishment rate and russia ranks near the bottom. russia according to the u.n. statistics is that 1.6, which means that russia every generation is constructed. what this looks like in practice if you read the russian statistics and the russians insist is that russia as a result of both natural death and of immigration from the russian

federation is constructing by close to half a million people every year. so vladimir putin in december of 2012 when he was giving one of his presidential campaign speeches he talked about the fact that according to the trend lines that his government was seeing, if the trend line is not a military did by 2015, the entire population of federation which is 142.9 million now will shrink down by about a quarter to 107. 107 million people. that is a massive construction of the human capital that russia has currently and can access as it moves into the future. the reasons for this are many but it's at least worth drawing them out. the first is that russia unlike the united states never experienced a peace dividend after the end of the cold war in terms of investiture and social

and cultural and educational infrastructure. what this looks like in practice is that life expectancy, median life expectancy for russian mails today is the same as it is in madagascar. its age 60. the life expectancy for females is a little better. 73. the same as saudi arabia. but both numbers are a decade to a decade and a half lower than they are for their analog governments in europe and in the united states. part of the reason for this is that as a function of russian gdp, health care expenditures have remained constant since the mid 1990's. the russian government is spending more money on the welfare of its people and it shows in the numbers. the second reason why russia's demographics are tanking is that you're seeing a wholesale collapse of the russian family. during the cold war, soviet families by and large stick together not necessarily because

they all liked each other -- we all know we have members and our families we can just assume export to other cities. but because they had no choice. because populations were locked in place and there was an extended family network that was cohesive and kept together by political and economic circumstances. today, it's exactly the opposite. according to the u.n., russia has the highest divorce rate in the world. half of all russian marriages according to the u.n. end in divorce and 60% of them do so in the first decade. what this means is that long-term families and as a result the logical product of long-term families such as multiple children is increasingly in endangered species so you could have a family that has one child but you rarely have families that have four or five or six children which is what is necessary for the demographic replenishment. you also have the rampant culture of abortion in russia

that is to stress on a number of levels. during the cold war and for those of you that our students of the cold war, and you know that abortion was functionally the only available means of contraception and was used by the spread with terrible effects on female self and fertility. this hasn't changed all that much. you have seen the trend lines that suggest there has been more awareness on the part of the russian authorities in terms of the negative effects and also even some investment. but in reality, the numbers are not all that much better. today in russia official statistics suggest that the rate of abortion is 1.2 million. that's the equivalent to 300 per hour with a population of 142 million people. but hawkins -- if you addition to the russian doctors they tell

you that network of publicly reported abortion is actually just the tip of the iceberg. in fact the number could be twice that because of abortions that are done off the books and are simply not reported. and that means that russians are aborting the equivalent of 2% of their life population every year and then in a very real sense killing off the prospect for demographic growth in the process. on top of that is something that russian experts themselves called an epidemic in hiv/aids. i think this is a very complex phenomena suggest to unpack it for you, aids came to the russian federation because of the way the soviet union was a closed society functionally leader in historic terms than it did to europe and to the united states. when they hit it hit with a vengeance. today something like 1% of the russian federation is estimated

to be hiv-positive. and this is being perpetuated and expanded by russia's own culture of drug use. russia has according -- and notice by the way i think it's important to stress we are talking about u.n. statistics which are not the most forward looking on demographics but they certainly can be said to be the most impartial because they do these aggregations for every country around the world. according to the u.n. statistics, the russian consumption alone accounts for more than a fifth of heroin used worldwide. and since injectable or a primary means of the hiv virus, this is or chemically linked the problems russia is experiencing with hiv/aids. now, if russia accounts for a fifth or more of all heroin consumed globally, notice the trend line, more than one-third according to the u.n. of injectable drug users and russia

are hiv-positive. and then you understand why one russian experts themselves talk about hiv and aids in the context of an epidemic, one that they have a very hard time getting their hands around and treating. the third trend for the fourth trend that is compounding all of these is the fact that russia's population is fleeing in a very real sense. the practices of the current russian state and the domestic conditions in the economic and cultural and social terms are forcing russians to buy the exit's and as a result, the pace of the exodus from russia of immigration from russia right now rivals the out migration that you saw a century ago when the bolsheviks to power. more than 2 million are estimated to have left since putin took power.

one and five russians today desires to live abroad and 40% of russians between the ages of 18 to 35 are actively contemplating departure. this is catastrophic because it gives you a window into the thinking of the russian population at large. the statistics are devastating all the more so because they are centers of the population that has lost hope in its future and no longer trusts the government to be a steward of its needs. this doesn't mean that there are not hopeful signs. if you have the misfortune of being a demographer you know for the last eight months russia has had an uptick in fertility. the demographics for the last eight months for 2013 has been positive enough that the russian government has decided to declare victory. if you talk to demographers who

watch this over the long term they will tell you that these peaks and valleys are normal for the long-term trend line that all these things i talked about, the collapse of the russian family, the abortion rate, the spiral will still continue downward because there is no serious russian official effort to counteract all of the symptoms of the problem. rather when you see on the part of the russian government is an effort to expand things that make russians feel good about themselves. so you have a 600 to 800 billion-dollar effort put forth by the russian government to expand infrastructure. i put infrastructure in error quote because it can mean anything you want it to mean. so the russian government has parlayed its investment in infrastructure and to for example military modernization and the modernization of the strategic arsenal.

they've put the term infrastructure to use when they talk about expansion of industries and certain remote towns. that's a great but this is not long-term investment in the types of things, health care system, education, social networks, medical records that will allow russians to rebound sustainably from this trend line this is the first trend and it's useful to unpack what the decline means and why it's happening and why it's important. the second trend line is to focus on one aspect of that because the demographic trend line isn't uniform. russia is transforming. the country's muslim population when compared to the trend lines are laid out is quite well. they don't aboard as a matter of convenience. they don't drink generally.

they don't divorce or the divorce much less. the to the larger number of children per family unit and as a result, what you see is while the russian population but largest decline in, the percentage of muslims within the russian population is expanding. said today the back of the envelope estimates that the russian officials give you is that muslims make up 60% of the overall population. about 21 million. but according to their own estimates by the end of the decade, one and five russians is kind of the muslim and by the middle of the century, again not all projections say this but some do you're going to be rapidly approaching parity. every other russian is the end of the muslim and that has a whole set of geopolitical the implications that we will talk about a little bit later but nonetheless, the plant to hammer home is that russia is transforming. and by the way, the united states is transforming. this isn't a bad trend percent

except for the fact the minority has had a glass ceiling. you have a population that is and well integrated either an economic or social terms into the social state. you've seen the government over the last decade rise in the corrosive far right nationalism. groups that are supported by the kremlin to support its objective and trend lines in the region towards protectionism that are simply turned a blind eye and the result is having been deprived of economic opportunity and being seen as an internal abroad and this is the term from a russian policymaker that says russia's muslims are muslim that they are not so much they are part of an internal abroad that we need to manage. because they sensed this trend line very well and as a result

you are seeing an increase on the part of the russian muslim minority and increasing radicalization. let me stop here and give you an example of what i mean by this pitting we know our general view of the rise of radical islam in russia tends to begin and end with discussions of the north caucasus. we know that they have been waging a grinding bloody war attrition against the separatists and islamic radicals for going on two decades. the russian government said they succeeded which the trend lines suggested is far from being over. but increasingly that problem is migrating from mashaal's periphery. a couple years ago in the winter i was in the russian republic, the capitol city. and there is a -- you literally can stand in the middle of the

street as i did and try not to get hit by cars but stand in the middle of the street and you see the islamic university which is the state approved, state funded, state lionized institution of religious learning. dmitry medvedev made a big show going out there in 2008 to tour the facility, praise the director and the curriculum for teaching nisha incompliant islam. essentially a moderate stream of islam that is subservient to and live in harmony with the russian state as a whole. what you see if you turnaround is something called the mosque, the largest radical mosque in the region paid for by saudi dollars and pakistani dollars and you have russian officials will tell you if you ask them that we really have no idea how to deal with this because it is a challenge to the established

religious quote and it's not just peaceful. last summer to of the highest religious authorities in the republic were targeted in an assassination attempt. one of those laws successful. the deputy of the entire region was killed in a car bomb. busey the growing sign of islam beginning to make its way from the periphery into the russian heartland in the places like maxtor where russia was forced to deploy the security services to the domestic unrest for the first time since the fall of the soviet union because after all the military is dealing with chechnya and this is an internal matter. so, this is something to watch and put together and we can talk about this in a minute because

russia's north caucasus is increasingly on our radar. we are not that far away from the olympics in russia. we are concerned over the security of the regional environment there and get every sign suggests that in addition to the olympics becoming a very expensive boondoggle for the russian government, which they are the this is also a very serious security concern because what russia promised the world that it has contained increasingly suggests, the trend line suggests it's not contained in fact it is resilient and it's spreading so that's the second trend line. the third one is that in a very real sense this is quite sound alarmist but it's not, the chinese are coming. the reason i say this is because russia geographically sits in

asia and had eight of it long before the obama administration. russia has been concerned about accessing the market and a sort of doing commerce with asian states like china but also to fix the territorial disputes with countries like japan and south korea. but increasingly, that area which cumulatively is 4 million square miles. it's enormous. russians are leaving. the population of western siberia has declined by 20% over the last two decades. the reason why i think is very simple. when my parents lived in the soviet union, they were told where they could or couldn't live. they were given permits to work in a certain city but not others and as a result populations for stat and if you wanted to move there was a process that you had to go through and as a result throughout the soviet union there were people that were

working in industries in locales where they wouldn't necessarily stay if they were given a choice. and with the collapse of those restraints and the those migration restrains people were leaving. they were leaving for warmer climates and green economic pastor's but they were leaving. and as a result, the territory of western siberia and the far east now cumulatively has a little over 25 million people. that translates out into six russians per square mile. so, what this tells you is tom clancy was wrong. you remember in the 1990's he wrote a book called the bear and the dragon and it was about the future conflict between russia and china in which the military is go to war. if you ask anybody better this is a reality you will get an answer kind of like what i got when i was there in march. it's never going to happen because when the people's liberation army comes across the

border the aren't going to find any russians to fight. there's no people. but the problem with this is if there's no people, there is no work force. that area has been likened to an energy superpower. it's the economic breadbasket of the federation and the investment in human capital and economic terms of the chinese government is making in the region dwarfs with the russian government has done. pleases are far closer geographically to beijing and moscow. just look at a map. so these regions on the distant east which is in a very real sense still treated by the people in moscow as an economic and also as a political backwater. increasingly transforming and beginning to view themselves as asian generally and chinese specifically. and that is a massive problem for russia because not only is

russia not able to pay debt economically that simply doesn't have control or increasingly doesn't have control over that territory. it is one in which the territorial conflict can i rise. so for those of you that don't know this is a territory that to meet the lovely the government of china have tussled lover for centuries. the border was demarcated only a few years ago. it was demarcated in 2001 by the treaty in typical grandiose friendship and good neighborliness but that isn't in fenech. the russian negotiators tried to make it infant not to have the sunset day and the chinese negotiator counterparts said we are good. we are going to make this last for 20 years. so the 2001 treaty told eight years from now and you know why it does? because looking in 2001 looking for work the chinese understood

that the demographic picture may look very different we may want to revisit the issue and reclaim as a result you are seeing a shift in the human capital and also in the economic capital and that has a five-year implications for russia as an energy superpower globally and also as an economic powerhouse in asia. so those are the macrotrend lines i talked about in the book. and the point that i make is by themselves each of these trendlines is damaging. if you have a russian state with the power and political capital and the will to turn things around they can't put the intersection of all free is catastrophic because what you see out of the russian government is increasingly state that is hard pressed to deal with even one of these dynamics let alone the three of them.

the state that vladimir putin and his followers have built over the last dozen years or so is built for the here and now, not as a long-term national enterprise. so what putin does abroad -- and by the way i think all of you remember the political song when you have problems you go abroad. with that in mind, think about putting's grandstanding on syria and iran it may be not only a reflection of russian strength but it may also be a reflection of russia's internal weakness because the state that he's built simply has not dealt with these trends in a very serious fashion. part of the reason is because it is and why year but may. russia's government is more than anything else -- a few years ago they would talk about it before mismanaged dhaka -- democracy. it's built around vladimir putin and his close circle of

followers. it's one that is kept in place by massive corruption and contract. what it does mean is that attracting the serious sustained international investment and other things that are required to turn the demographic trend lines around will require the dismantlement of the state and that isn't quite to happen. so the russian government is caught in the cul-de-sac of its own political meeting but that doesn't mean it's going to go quietly. it's not simply going to dissolve and disappear and collapse. what it could mean is as we look into the future -- and i want you to understand we are not talking about trend lines in the next couple of years. in the next couple of years what you see out of russia today easily to be pretty much what you get but as you look further into the future, the trends are going to begin to exert an extra

ball poll on how pressure of the caves. for example you can expect them to enhance russia's in terri hail and pulse. we know that russia still any real sense cut its territory that used to be part of the soviet union. territories that were sort of stripped away as a result of the history as a result of political accident. vladimir putin himself talked in 2008 about the collapse of the soviet union being the largest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century. this ideological leading to reclaim the lost land is likely to be given a shot in the arm by the loss of land elsewhere as russia begins to lose its eastern periphery the impulse to expand westward not in political terms mind you but in territorial terms is going to read least be reinforced if not become an unquenchable. the second trend line and you will see this sooner it is very

likely as you see the rise of an insurgent strain of extreme islam places and elsewhere in what is called the eurasian heartland you will see the widening of a conflict between the russian state and the forces they can't control. we are not talking about one chechnya we are talking about many. and this only sounds like an overstatement if you didn't watch the emergence of the conflict and its maturity. it's maturation over time has taken on a conflict of far larger proportions than was originally envisioned and what i am saying is that the trend line that you are seeing in the russian heartland at least have the potential. they may not, that they have the potential to do so. the third trend line and i will stop there is that you can imagine as russia contorts

internally from these ideological and religious tensions and begins to press west word for the demographic as well as economic reasons this grant the heightened tensions with europe and the block. all of this is a long way of saying what i said at the outset which is that we americans tend to see russia at face value. when vladimir putin strives very large on the world stage, when he creates a geopolitical who with his arms deal in syria what sort of his relationship with iran, we tend to assume that what you see is what you get. russia is rising and has to be dealt with or comedy did in order to make progress on world affairs. what i'm telling you is that that might not be as simple. ..

give them a little bit of food for thought about where russia is heading. because knowing where russia is heading is determinative to figure out what our policy should be. thank you, guys. i will stop there. [applause] >> we will take questions. if you'll be so kind as to wait for the microphone and we would appreciate you at least a million and an affiliation if you would care to as a courtesy to our guest. i'm going to take the

prerogative a reading one of the questions we received online. i'm going to change it a little bit. how can the u.s. or could be as effectively support positive transformation in russia without creating a perception of foreign interference which only aggravates the anti-american feeling, and also target liberty issues in that? >> i think it's a great question. it actually, to go on a slight tangent for a second one of the reasons why russia is so uncooperative on middle east policy, and for example, has spent two and a half years supporting the assad regime against its domestic opposition is because it has seen this movie before. a decade ago russia witnessed on periphery what we now call the color revolution. russia was petrified and then and is petrified now that those guidelines from abroad will take hold within russia. because here's a dirty little

secret. vladimir putin isn't all that popular. the last credible polling that i saw came out in the spring. it suggested that of respondents who voted, who participated in the vote for the presidential election, the last presidential election in russia, only 34% said that they would vote for vladimir putin. any demographic -- in a democratic society that is catastrophic. even in an authoritarian one is deeply troubling which is why would you see and have seen over the last year has been a deepening of russia's antidemocratic threat. the real dilemma for u.s. policymakers is how to square that circle. how to invest in democratic institutions, democratic infrastructure without being seen as meddling in internal affairs, without having its proxies whether it's republicans or democrats, blacklisted, sort

of kicked out of the country i think that's a very difficult needle to thread. that's the reason why the obama administration has spent so little time actually thinking about it. because there's a large things we can work with with regard to russia. we can work on strategic nuclear reduction. we can work on counterterrorism, that these are thornier issues. i think one of the most neutral conversation you can have with russia moving forward is maybe the start that within branch into something larger, is a discussion about economic opportunity for russia's minorities. because rush and the united states on a number of issues dealing with radical islam and counterterrorism have a tremendous amount of commonality. the russians are wired when we talk. especially now we can start a tactical dialogue on security ahead of the games and migrate it into a larger conversation about not using blunt force to deal with your discrepancies and

your muslim minority, had become a larger conversation. but it's not an easy conversation to have. >> i'm nathaniel brown. i'm an interview. my question is about the real opposition within russia. i want to ask you how much of an influence realistically do you think people would have going into the future? >> i think it's a good question. and the state of russia's democratic opposition is one of those things that you tend to watch sort of sporadically, when he gets put on trial on charges and then gets released, gets wrapped up again. you tend to knows that there's not a lot of sustained attention. i would point out a couple turn lights. one, profoundly negative and one

slightly positive. profoundly negative on is that vladimir putin understands very much because of his popularity ratings that there is a problem, there is a problem if there is a sustained liberal opposition to his rule. as result he tried to widen the conversation. so putin's political faction is known as united russia. united russia has undergone a series of very public lack eyes over the last few years. members in the lower house apartment have been caught with property in the united states, you know, above and beyond sort of what they should afforded based on their paychecks. defense minister who engaged potentially based on a personal vendetta. all sorts of things. all of this has tarnished the united russia brain. what putin has done has been to widen the conversation. since 2010 he's been talking and more recently his been acting to great something called -- acting

and the russian national front or is it a conglomeration of about 200 different political organizations, ngos, social organizations which are intended to be an umbrella defeat ideas into united russia. it is intended to, one, rehabilitate united russia to show that united russia's more tense than and accountable to listen to all these groups and the second is to push the liberal opposition to the outskirts of russian policy. because if everybody, everybody is part of the national front and you're not, that means you're a crackpot. as a result of putin has managed at least so far to maneuver through russian politics. but there are hopeful signs this is not going to be indefinitely the case. for example, mayoral elections in places suggest that this dominance of united russia and united russia leaning parties is a transient affair. and left to the own devices voters will vote to elect somebody.

i'm not exactly sure that the one specific person but somebody else other than the established hierarchy. this is something that the kremlin is very cognizant over. it's something that it's likely the kremlin can control or clamp down on. it gives you a glimmer of hope that there is, there are yearnings for pluralism beyond the construct that putin has created but it's likely it they will come to any sort of real meaningful fruition. >> as you know, one of the projects president putin is doing to revitalize russia's of strength is to carve out control within the former soviet union. i think the idea is that would allow russia to reconstitute a market that they could hold the line against china in some ways through a union.

what do you think the chances of the success of the project would be in terms of reversing some of the trends you cautioned about? >> i think it's interestingcome and you mentioned this was intended as a hedge against china. i think it is up to a point but i think it's a hedge against european liberalization. if you look at what's happened with russia's strong-arming of ukraine over the last few months, you have seen ukraine that was on track to signing and association agreement with the european union and as result was penalized by the russian federation. it was essentially the ukrainian government was told in no uncertain terms if you choose europe, if you make the mistake of choosing europe and don't use my derision economic bloc there will be adverse consequences. for example, a clampdown on trade and a clampdown on a sort of a raising of customs restrictions. this is a hedging strategy for sure, but it doesn't alter the overall trajectory. in fact, among certain governments it increases their

push westward. to buck the trend of realignment with moscow. it's not clear that russia's economy is as vibrant or as dynamic as it needs to be to really draw people to it if the deck was not stack. this is i think the real problem. a great little vignette someone may have missed is in the last two weeks, china has bought up the equivalent of 5% of the ukrainian territory for agricultural purposes. this is a big deal. it's a big deal because it suggests that china is increasingly moving westward also in his economic plan but it's also a challenge to russia because if russia still covets ukraine, which it does, economically which it does come increasingly they're not she's dealing with ukraine, to do with a more difficult variable which is the intrusion of china. against all of these trends,

it's not clear that the economic plans of the russian federation are robust enough are forward-looking enough that they're actually going to make russia solving, they are certainly trying but over the long term i think this is going to be a very difficult road. >> i'm from israel. i have to question. one is a short-term question about russia, and the iranian situation, negotiations that are going on now. what do you think is going on about that? the second question relates longer-term, china, which i think is the name of the game, longer-term. and what do these troubling transmissions going on in russia mean for china? and china's role in the world

today. >> the iranian issue first because i think that is useful to unpack. i think that when you think about russia, it's useful to remember that the russian government is a master of creating a problem and then having a solution to the problem. the russian government was the one that initiated the sale or approved the sale of x. 300 i missile batteries to iran. table that seal and now the sale is back on the table. it is a pattern because i think when you look at what russia is seeking when it comes to its partnership with iran, it's useful to point out that partnership with iran is not across the board uncontroversial issue in russia. it's not a federal issue. there's a very strong vocal minority that points out that the islamic republic is closer geographically to the russian federation than it is even to

israel. it's sort of anything that any capabilities that iran gains if they're not careful could be directed towards russia itself. but the dominant line has always been cooperation. cooperation as result of defense industrial ties, cooperation as result of the fact that iran has the potential to exacerbate these radical islamic tendencies in the caucuses if it wants to. so you keep it at bay by engaging in commerce. and its animated by at least some within the russian elite like good old-fashioned americanism to the best defense is a good offense. if the west is bogged down to putting out fires in the middle east, it is less likely to interfere in russia's own periphery. russia as a legitimate concern about the encroachment of europe, the encroachment of nato, and the encroachment of the training. to iran is using them for those reasons, which means that u.s.-iranian -- i'm skeptical but don't let 30 years of u.s.-iranian politics stop.

but if you believe this is going to happen, it will be different this time, you have to understand that russia is going to be disadvantaged as a result because those same paradigms that drove russian cooperation to if they thought, if they fall away, if iran is no longer an adversary of the united states, is now a partner, then iran move sending an asset to being a liability. with regard to china over the long term, i think this question is all about chinese into dynamics and economics. china need something on the order of 20 million jobs created every year to keep their unemployment rate stable, which is why you see a massive export of chinese human capital to latin america, africa and to the russian far east. so china's growth, the explosive growth, the average is like 10% growth year on year averaged over the last decade, despite global economic recession, suggests china needs to fuel the

fire. china is hungry. and as result china is looking for a new economic market and opportunity. the russian far east is low-hanging fruit. >> david with the heritage foundation. referring to the demographic issue, says budget would jonathan's last book. and he points out is the only country that ever turned the ship around is georgia goes the orthodox church got involved. that page iraq was blessing every third child. could you tell us about the state of the orthodox church in russia? is a player? can't fix the demographic situation somewhat? >> council is ugly. i think that's a good point to draw out. something is remarkable, and you can sort of alliances in putin's russia are notoriously mercurial. he who is up today may be down tomorrow. he is visible on tv today may

disappear into academia for seven years and then come back. but what you notice is the macro 10 lined has been this growing -- 10 lined. to the point where the russian orthodox church has become, if not sort of across the board rubberstamp for the kremlin policy, certainly a powerful voice vocalizing in support of a large percentage of kremlin policy. but notice this isn't demographic the demographic question. it's a political question. this is an enshrinement of conservative ideas as translated by the government of by the russian orthodox church. whether this translates into more babies in russia, probably not. and it's not a mistake that putin has hit upon this alliance with the russian orthodox church because he also saw the trendline in georgia. he also understands how these things work. but the russian orthodox church for him as less of a demographic salvation and more of a political ally.

>> i'm with the defense department if you mentioned earlier that during the 1990s russia did not yet have a peace dividend. at least in social services, infrastructure, what have you. during the same period there was a great deal of usaid, i recall, setting up ngos, public workstation, to try to build a civil society in russia. has there been any evidence or any work that these private institutions have stepped in to fill the void to perform these social services that the government is not? >> i think it's a good question. i probably over spoke sort of overestimated, only slightly, when i said there was no peace

dividend. there was in real terms because the russian economy got better and there was some ancillary runoffs that went to russian society. but because per capita gdp now is better now so you can say there was no progress. what you can see is there were not considered serious systemic investment and the type of infrastructure talk about. in transparent election, social services, cultural outreach. that's what the international community gaming. that's where you had sort of a real sustained investment track on the part of the international community. we also commune of there's a sustained investment track in the this element of russia's strategic weapons. also the dividends from that i think, we can talk about, but nonetheless these were sort of the two main tracks of sort of u.s. interest in post-soviet russia. i think what's happening now, when you see the rollback of civil society in russia, it is

very much a function of precisely that. it is a function of the fact that the kremlin ease of these entities having been either created or at least partially supported by the international community as a threat, as to potential insurgent threat. so the russian government approval over the last couple of years with a new foreign agent law which requires ngos, political ngos, not all ngos, political ngos that gain even all that of financing from international community, meaning the united states, doctor register as a foreign agent essentially to the outside of the confines of polite russian politics, tells you they need to know about fact that the russian government is more interested in marginalizing these elements than in exploiting them. these elements are effected as political voices but they're seen as a threat by the kremlin. so i'm not sure -- i certainly haven't done a study of how effective they been but i do know, just based on criminal

practice, they are seen not as a partner but as a challenge for the russian government. as a result, the knives are out. >> quick question. how does russia view athletics and sports in terms of including it in the world games, for example? mr. putin is well-known as a judo expert. >> mr. putin trains with the russian national junior team which is great. when i was in moscow in march, he was there, too. my childhood was complete. i can point out, this is all a bit of a funny anecdote that being a judo black belt in russia is different than being a judo black belt in japan. soap putin in his or her presence he went to japan. there were lots of pictures that made their way into the russian

press and in national press of him getting flipped all over the place by an 11 year old japanese girl, which i don't know if it contributed to the downturn in relations but it certainly didn't help. but i think it's a good question. and to the olympics become really important, to the extent the russian government can show that -- these are already by the way. i do know what the actual tally is as of this weekend, but on the order of dozens of billions of dollars, the most expensive olympics have ever been constructed. there's lots of indications that there's corruption better sort of -- ahead of the olympic committee was removed and replaced because the project was not on schedule. so this is as much a public image problem for the russians as it is a security problem. but both things matter. russia has to provide, right, when the world is watching rush asked to provide a secure environment, and that means, sadly it's going to mean a lot of very heavy-handed security

tactics, but they have a real problem on their hands. but it's also going to mean that they will have to get the economic ship ins -- economic state shipshape. >> thank you for the presentation. i'm from the north caucasus. last week i visited a conference at george washington university about russia. a certain statistic jumped out at me. plagiarism in russian academic institutions can be as high as 70%. so how can you tell when the u.s. officials go to meet with russian officials, how do you know that these officials are not coming with a fake resume speak with you can't come in fact. this is a real problem. they the valley of education integrity in russia is a symptom of the decline where there is a culture of corruption but it

does pervade other things. we understand it pervades and daschle and economic sectors, but it does have its impact on ancillary sectors. the fact that this is acceptable and that university directors turn a blind eye tells you everything you need enough about what's for sale and what's not in today's russia. but, if this is why i made mention of it when i was giving my presentation, this is what statistics in russia at least in part are so suspect. because it's very hard to discern who is doing good viable sustainable research in russia, particularly when you have 70% of resumes patty. that's what i alluded to the u.n. estimates of sort of being a means estimate. because they tend to aggregate both the height and the low. i have seen russian statistics which are far more bleak than what i laid out for you. the fact that this is the midline of the estimates should tell you everything you need to know about how bad the situation actually is.

>> i'm from the u.s. air force. i was curious about -- are you talking about ukraine, belarus or europe and the balkans? >> no. and again this is a question, a question of sort of the eyes being bigger than the stomach and nobody is saying russia will go to war with everyone, sort of outright conflict. but what putin has built, the best we describe it as a postmodern empire, and invite a political and economic influence even if they're not actual military influence. and so those things, for example, russian strong arm tactics on polling to prevent the construction of the pipeline that would produce energy independence for ukraine. things like that. these are things that should be worrisome. but also the truism is that the

longer russia's territorial boundaries remained the same without being pushed outward, the more the imperial urgent diminishes. the moral russia's military successes abroad as it did against georgia, the more its appetite is wedded for other skirmishes. so i am not a prognosticator i can tell you russia will go to war over ukraine or over belarus, but i can tell you that in those places they are watching these trendlines closely. the one variable that they tend nonot to talk about is how the russian israel impulse is being strengthened simply by demographic mathematics. if you need to widen, expand your population, there's not that many places that you can do that. >> one final question? >> what's happening with ethnic

russians living in the former republic of the soviet union? are they moving back to russia? are they going in the opposite direction? what role do they play, if any, in russians relations with those former areas to the kremlin would certainly can do for sure but and has resulted in all sorts of things where they have created relatively hasslefree assumption of russian nationality, for example, pay for people who live abroad you can claim russian heritage, get a passport. it increases the virtual role, not the actual roles because they're not in the russian federation and are not reproducing. but the trendline in economic and political terms is profoundly negative. great example of this is that at the tail end of the current presidency, the kremlin dreamed up a project. it was intended as a hub for technology, innovation, you

know, on everything from software to biotech, everything. essentially the new silicon valley. and there are a tremendous number of russians were people of russian extraction who are fantastic in this area and russia reached out to those. i remember, of course this wasn't the sum total of the answer, but the there are two russian nobel laureates that were approached who now live in the united states and in england i think, who were approached to sort of come back to russia and to bring their innovation, bring the technology, the company to rush and set up shop. and their answer was no. it was hell no. because they understand very well that the culture, political culture in russia is going to mean that their intellectual property is not sacrosanct, that the russian government is going to be sort of very capricious without it abortions aid or how it takes proprietary products.

and so as result, they are perfectly happy to seek the economic fortunes elsewhere. that is a huge drain for russia. because the more the russian government appears to be hostile to entrepreneurship, individual entrepreneurship, the less ability it has to compete on the world stage. that's one of the reasons why you see this mass outmigration of russians. because those with the means to do so are increasingly looking for economic alternatives. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, trembling, for a wonderful discussion. thank you all for your participaparticipa tion. of course, we have copies available if you'd like to purchase one. ilan will be appear decisive and carry on a conversation following a dismissal, otherwise thank you for your kind attention. hope to see you very soon begin at heritage. we are dismissed.

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