u.s. businesses were to go back there u.s. energy companies, that would affect russia's current rowell as iran's major great power interlocutor, and that's far down the road. this is an area where we all working better together because

the sanctions worked. the really tough sanctions forced the the iranians to the table. >> russia didn't agree to them. >> another area where we don't entirely agree, to put it mildly, is ukraine. you talk about russian attitude to ukraine. you could not write in your book about what is happening right now in kiev, but recent by president yanukovych to moscow, his agreement with president putin. we talk about that? >> yes. so the leadership of the ukraine, after the orange revolution, i describe it in my book -- their russians were disconcert by this, we were hopeful and didn't work out the way the west hoped it would. the leadership under you sharon can -- they were arguing all the time and you had a

relatively free and fair election in 2010. mr. yanukovych came to power, and the european union was trying to entice him through this eastern partnership, to sign a deep sea trade agreement, an association agreement, which does not mean membership but it should a tailor the more towards european norm. the u.on union believes it's a post modern grouping, doesn't like to engage in old fashioned geopolitics. russia doesn't minds engaging in old fashioned geo politic, and are so russia, ukraine is an important country. they have for centuries been part of the same system. and russia does believe that it

has a right to its interests in its backyard, knee they're right neither the united states or european union have been willing to concede. so as it became clear mr. yanukovych appeared to be serious about signing an agreement with the european union, which would have -- it would have meant a shift in ukrainian priorities and the way they organize themselves. russia put pressure on ukraine, the eastern part of ukraine is very tight by integrated economically with russia. ukraine is in many ways still a divided country. it has one view of russia, the eastern, the western part, used to be part of the hungarian empire and the independent poland, looks more to europe and is suspicious of russia and speaks ukrainian. so russia -- first of all

reminding ukraine they can put pressure on it in terms of cutting off trade if it signs the agreement with the european union, then as we neared the date of the signature, it was offering carrots to mr. yanukovych. many people believe he never intended to sign the agreement with the european union but was trying to get the best deal possible. the ukraine is going to default if it doesn't get economic assistance, and so in the last couple of days russia has offered $15 billion rescue package, if you like, to ukraine, that involves buying bond, making sure ukraine doesn't default, and then cutting the gas prices from around $400 to 283. but anyway, cutting it substantially so that ukraine would be paying much lower prices for russian gas. the european union has taken a step back now. you suddenly have a rash of european politicians, american

politicians, going to kiev, and speaking to the thousands and thousands of demonstrators who want ukraine to sign an agreement with the european union, and you haven't seen russian officials glowing and making speeches. they have quietly been talking to the ukrainians. clearly at this point russia has won. russia is going to bail out ukraine. russia is going to hope that in the 2015 election mr. yanukovych is re-elected. if he doesn't there's a question about what ukraine would do in the future. i think this underlines the fact that at least for the united states, ukraine is a long way away. there is just so much that we can do to get involved in the post soviet state and russia's neighbors, but there's a limit to that. many other foreign policy priorities and in the bush administration, at one point, the bush administration wanted nato membership for ukraine more than ukraine did.

ukraine isn't interested anymore. europeans are closer. there's maybe more of a reason for them to get involved in ukraine, but geography does matter and when you look at the map, everyone has to understand that maybe ukraine has to work out something in the future where it doesn't have to choose one side or the other. that it can somehow work with both sides. otherwise i think it's unrealistic. >> the russian foreign minister, much maligned by several commentators in the united states, in my view often unfairly. spoke though european union, complained about what european and u.s. officials were doing in kiev during the demonstrations. he complained about two things. first, he complained that european officials and u.s. assistant secretary of state, and senator john mccain, were

appealing to the -- in kiev and were creating a strong impression that the united states and european union were exemption against their own government and the felt it was inappropriate and something like that would never be allowed in the united states or in european union countries. but second complaint was that american officials, european union officials, were claiming that ukraine was overwhelmingly for european union, and said wait a second. hundreds of thousands of people in paris demonstrated against same-sex marriage, but the french socialist government said, wait a second. we have won the election. we have the majority and the legitimately elected parliament. we decide what is in the best

interests of the country, not the size of the crowd. and lavrov said the yanukovych government was legitimately elected. why would the size of the crowd protesting the yanukovych politics would be an indication of what the ukrainians want. >> you raise an important general issue here, which is one of the problems in the u.s.-russian relationship, is a tendency certainly on the part of the russian government, to question the consistency of what the u.s. does, the sincerity of it, and to point out that what russia does is absolutely no worse than what the u.s. does. that's a general framework. when we get into these arguments that is part of the reason why this is a cranky relationship. one of the analogies that russians like to use is the "occupy" movement. i don't know how many -- i don't think any top russian officials

addressed the "occupy" movement when people were protesting. i know it was certainly featured on television and certainly some russian whose went there but not high officials. i guess the answer to this is that there's no reason why u.s. officials and european officials shouldn't go and address the demonstrators if they want. but i do think it's true that it's not completely clear whether the majority of ukrainians want to go in one direction or the other, because ukraine is a split society. so, i think it's when you get to this -- i mean, in 2004, during the orange revolution, you certainly did have russians going to kiev and doing similar things. not this time but the russian officials stayed in moscow and negotiated with mr. yanukovych. people in the united states questioned why, since mr. yanukovych was democratically elected in a reasonably free and fair election, l the u.s. should be

going there and trying to push ukraine in one direction. i think the difference is we're divided here. there's quite a lot of criticism of what happened, and there's some people who endorse it. but i think it just -- i think it shows also that russia played this very well this time. >> professor stent, it's really important, informative, and fair book. required reading. congratulations. >> thank you. >> while congress is in reese this keeping, c-span2 is featuring booktv in primetime. tuesday will feature military stories. at 8 mmm peter man century discusses sewage. at 9:25, a-okay la williams on

love and recovery in the aftermath of war. and later, at 10:20, bing west on his book, the wrong war, grit, strategy, and a way out of afghanistan. book tv and primetime all this week on c-span2. >> coming up next here on c-span2, booktv and premium featuring book on u.s. relations with russia. first, edward lucas and his book, the new cold war. then implosion, the end of russia and what it means for america, and later, afterwards, with angela stent on the limits of partnership. >> for st. patrick's day we turn to the video library at c-span.org to see how u.s. presidents marked the holiday. >> despite all this, tip wanted me here. he said that since it was march

17th it was only fitting that someone drop by who actually had known st. patrick. and that's true, tip. i did know st. patrick. in fact, we both changed to the same political party at about the same time. >> once you have had a glass of guinness with a man in ireland, as i have with brian lenahan, you're friends. ♪ [applause]

>> today, more than 35 million americans claim irish ancestry. america's richer for every murphy, kelly and o'sullivan. i should have said mccain. [applause] >> well, i just did. >> well, happy st. patrick's day to everybody. tens of millions of americans trace their roots back to the emerald isles, and on st. patrick's day many millions more claim to. [applause] >> the atlantic council is examining issues facing the economy. speakers include house budget committee ranking member chris van hole lean, omb directie sylvia burwell, and sheila bair

and others. live coverage tuesday at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2. >> c-span2, providing live coverage of the u.s. senate floor proceed examination key public policy events, and every weekend, booktv. now for 15 years the only division network devoted to nonfiction books and authors. c-span2 created by the cable tv industry and funds by your local cable and satellite provider. >> next, russian leadership under the cur russian leadership under the current president, vladimir putin. journalist edward lucas discusses this book "the new cold war: putin's russian and the threat to the west." this is from 2008. about 90 minutes.

>> this is the central and eastern europe correspondent for the economist. he has been covering the region for more than 20 years. witnessing the final years of the cold war, fall of the iron cur rent and the collapse of the soviet empire. boris yeltsin's downfall and ndeadimir putin's rise to power. he was the editor of a weekly independence news in holland. he was a correspondent for the london independent based in washington, dc before leaving for -- and earlier in his career he worked for the bbc as a renturnalist. he holds a bs from the london school of economics and studied polish. mr. lucas is the author of a new book entitled "the new cold war" which he'll talk about this afternoon with all of us, for about 20 minutes, and then we'll open the floor up -- i raul use

the prerogative chair to ask one or two questions and then open it to all of you. mr. lucas. >> guest: well, thank you very much for that gracious instruction and thank you to radio free europe, radio linter, the chance to talk here. i have the most longest and happiest memories of radio free europe, dating to the time when i used to listen to the czech service to try to find out what was going on. the best news seemed to come via munich. so, it's a great perspective to be here. and i want to start off by just making it clear, perhaps something particularly important in organization which fought the last cold war with such brilliant and integrity, that i'm not saying in my book that the old cold war is coming back again t the old cold war had three defining features. a global conflict, ideological

conflict, military confrontation, and those elements are either gone or different. we're no longer worried about soviet tanks crashing through, reaching the rhine within three days days and giving us the choice of going nuclear of surrendering, completely different conflict. secondly issue want to make it clear isuc not saying in this book that everything that happened then 1990s in russia was good and mr. putin took over recreated the soviet union. that's not the case. i doubt many of you feel the need to be reminded of that but it is trery important when one s attacking what has happened under the kremlin that one doesn't try to make out the years were better than they were. it's important for us to understand that quite a lot of what was going on in russia is a kind of delayed action, consequence of the chaos and uncertainty and dislocation of

those years. and i also want to make it clear, just for the record, that this book is not part of what one might call the the chorus tt says everything in russian is good or the chorus that says y in russia is bad. there's another man named b in surrey, and he pays quite a lot of money to finance conferences and seminars and studies that prove that putin is a monster. he himself helped create. and a man name begins with k, lives in confine independent siberia. a lot of his money goes towards paining a very black picture of putin's russia. i a agree. but i also make it very clear in the book i do not record him as a prisoner and i regard a lot of the worst aspects aspects of pum spending from the fusion of

economic path that mr. berezovsky developed in the 19e thrs. so let me move on to the main thesis of the book. which is the philosophy under putt put. losses of transparency, freedom and legality. we. summarize these as restraint and redress. in any society, doesn't matter what system, always going to be the danger that weak get pushed out of the bay and we have lots of institutions and mechanisms to make sure that doesn't have. we have the political process, the rule of law, free media, ng os. >> ed individuals like free peach and so on, and it seefer o me that under putin these have been systematically destroyed, or negated in russia. let's sta. s with the elections. fundamental. democratic. principle of choice. i refuse even to use the word elections for what is coming up

in russia. one might, i suppose, call it voting, because votes will be cast, but the choice is not there. we have a paradox, one of the great russian writers, would have loved. election which is totally predictable and totally mystified. we know it's predicable because to win but i is goat to win but i is goat we done. is he keeping the seat warm for mr. put's return. is mr. medvedev the result of l script? like gone with the wind where the audience is on the edge of the seat but everybody knows what is going on, or like casa blanca where they make it up as they go long, product the panicky choice in the kremlin

but the political system does not provide redress. the legal system. it's easy to sit here in the west and cite s@se russian courts and many have done it. mr. n american bar association has don it. one said that russian -- russia was a police stake. wasn't some wayout, fringe of the russian think tank. mr. medvedev said it wasdon- denounced unparalleled corruption, lack of fiscal economic freedom and the states, diproportionate state influence in the economy. so these criticism are real and not outlandish and that constraints -- you alegway say why do we need to worry about this? why not just let the russians get on with iat w 80% of russians l-- e putin. polls may by phony but we have

other things to worry about. china to worry about, the war on ter ror, aspeica to worry about, global warming, who needs another problem. and it's certainly true that russia is not l-- e the soviet union. we talk seriously with russians about nukes and seriously with the russians about north korea, sometimes talk sort of seriously with the russians about iran and the midng,e east. to it's true, russia is ing, not a globe adversary, but for two reasons to be worried about what is happening, one is the trajectory. now, i don't need to remind -- the pace which produced the repo. s to faswesson, how disgusting some of the stuff is you can find on the russian media and how close to the russian authorities. you've not done it, and you speak russian, implore you've get on youtube and look at those propaganda trideos and your blot will run cold.

music, the idea of russia as bee sieged, it's poisonous, and not only poisesonnous, it is poisoning russian public sentiments. i like to think they're just crooks. the whole thing, managed democracy, all this -- is all just made up in order to fool the russian ptieple into ged,ing nge their freedom inch fact all they want to do is steal billions and billions and jullions of dollars. they the ultimate. but isuc not that optimistic. i think some of them actually do believe it. that's what is scary. it's changing the russian public opinion and people who really believe this stunts. it's leafus. it is not confined to russia. it leaks to central europe. it leaks to countries that we thought were fir%

by anchored in the euro aom antic camp. ron as asmus raises a word i haven't heard since ronald reagan used it, rollback, us losing countries we thought we gained the freedom and democracy and they're coming under the spell of russian money and that's scary. i was amazed to see how successful the russians were in don- they knocked the pieces speom the boae it and kicked thm to the far side of the word, bulgaria, the way in which russian money is crefsing pry plefer in latvia, lithuania, that politicians backed by dirty russian money, alreacri been public disgraced, able to come back and have a second go. this is scary stuff. i would l-- e to say it's tough thatdon- but we're winning, buti can't. i think we're losing. not just countries that ptieple

never heard of, it's worse. its goes further west. if if sat here eight years ago, six years ago, and told an refdience of distinguished washington europe watchers, the serving german chancellor in his final weee s in ontsice would sntrin off on a proing thect which wast only commercially pre possess produce, but that directly @behreatened the security of ge, sany's eastern allies, pole land me and baltic states, the polish defense minister would compare it to -- and that german leader, within weeks of leaving office, would then take a lucrated,e position as chairman of that pipeline con cy p sores

-- consortiumor, would have called security. gyuld those on deeply dat russian companies and say its refdits are okay, and then when the russian companies became lest -- and easier to as ustify, ts of what they'd done. then when those same companies came under pressure from the kremlin, the b. i e chip, outfield - -- auditors would say you cast accounts were in oe itr but it has come to our notice that ptieple are relying on this auld did so we therefore withdraw it. these were aresountants. bean counters. no a bit of it. we're seeing an extraordinary push with russian money into what we regard as the citadel o% @behe western economic system. if up in london with a suitcase

of stolen faberge eggs and said i need a ban r i need a lawyer, and i need a p.r. firm, i and i'll pay richly, ptieple would call the police. you turn u dawith $17 billion worth of western shareholders' money, just stolen in broad daylight, and these timinstriped genhave ses, these captains of finance, are making it look legal and spin and it make it seem oorey in the press and that is one of the fronts which is not just trying to save moldova to push the russias back in latvioa it's happening on k street. it's happening in the city of london. the communison was a hard sell. that be pretty soft in the head or pretty stupid to believe that communism was ao sracted,e and u had to be myotimic to believedo-

parm,icularly as the cold war went on. but now that czechist, the first final in russian history the secret police are actually running the place and czechists are attacholng us with our own monel th and if they run with te belief only money matters we're defenseless when people attack us using money. us using money. so on that cheerful not k going to stop. i have lots more to say but i'll take questions. >> i kept thinking about the pretty common view that there's a cultural aversion to political pluralism and an antsinity to a strong hand at the top that transcends the governmental style of the moment, that is, throis sth from bizarres into communism and now the post

communist era. to what extent do you think it's a factor in what has h mompened under putin. only isuc always very cautious beside extrapolating from history into the present you. you can say this country has never known good government so never going to want it. i think one of the stories oly % @behe last ten, 15 years, is tht we have actually gone to countries that haven't had a history of trery good gover'llet and been able to help build institutions and rule of law and so on that mhose gover'llent wor r and so isuc a bit skeansical abt the idea that it's -- russia is doomed by its history never to be democratic. one said, passionately keen that we really offer ukraine a pathway to european union membership if we can mhose it a ordiresess, if we can help ukrae to make it a discuss. so they live not only with more monel th more prosperity and alo in greater freedom, more

security than the russians and its undermines the great argument that russia has. yo lacan't bring democracy to ex-communist countries. yes, we did. yo lacan't bring democracy to we tur --don- we dily w you can't bring -- democracy too -- we did. >> you can't bring democram, tp% ilavic countries or bntri slavic countries. okay, very big slavic countries. if we can make ukraine work -- if we can make ukraine work -- e dokng you cane. work in big slavic countries whose names begin with r., that would have made a bntri dent in the argadeent. i do seedon- history is digestig history is really difficult, and i had a whole chaanser in the i had a whole chaanser in the bout which the soviets have

indigested lumps of soviet history are coming to the ordirface asain which we understatemented of russian in. the 1990s. you say we brought democram,, which raises thehowun stion, sie we're sitting in washington, where we have an inflated idea of our oly a power, to inf. i ence events around the world, what did we do wrong with russia? or did we? could we as at the west behaved dintserenom y in those years of gorbachev and then the collapse of the soviet union, that mntrig have changed the outcome? only well, when i say, we, i men the thing west believe in. not we, the west, we americans, we brits, we inc. i des wedon- all the people who helped win the cold war and build on the ruins of the evil empire. what dlp we do wrong? well, let's do a little thought

about this. i apologize if you heae it this before. let's as ust ima% the ne that the third reich was not defeated on the battlefield and hitler did not com whet sou wesde in 1945. but the second world war never started or ended in stalemate and the third reich survively w leot ws ima% the ne hitler died like stall ok dadid and was succeeded bay sort of khrushchev figure, to tell the truth about the holocaust, admitted the holocaust happened and there was a period of thaw and then too notch and he was pushed out of poweeme we had a kind of german british brezhnev, and the crisis becoming more and more -- until in the mlp-198at we got a refo, sed nazi. call him mikhail gorba, and the change is very qou ck. and the natioaryl socialist pary

loses -- the gestapo and the ss come under some kind of political control, there are elections, ptieple are telling the truth about history, and the captive nations of the third reic, i get their indmoneendenc% and so the pols and the danes, the dutch and the czechs, the austrians, return back to master the world which they handbeen raised in in w38 and 1939. then it comes out that it's gone too far. gosesa can hold the thie it rslh together and it collaouldes ande get a new country called the german federation and iot ws a jugger mess. the economy is really struck. and on the one handwe want to help these new countries, pols and stapeccall and dutch and ds and we want to treat the german federation with -- so, we're

pretting standoffish towar bn te e etch and the danes and the pos and the czechs. then it turns out the ss has really not been dissolvedful manst renamed. and a lot of senior ex-nazi politicians who claimed to be democrats still talk about this is a germany's backyard and say we need to argue, you have to take us into account. so these pols and the danes and the stapeccall and the dutch se want to join nato, and we say, really? it's extensive. on- and then german politiwesans starm, saying, impermissible. this must not happen. and once they starm, saying that wedon- two things h mompen. first of all, the desear for countries to join nato intensme kies. and we stop f twling wn itre unr a moral obligation to let them in. and so we do. and there's a lot of furry in berlin and gestapo ptieple thadp

the table and says the nation will never recover. then just ndwagine that in in w, thas ends in an econo whec crisis. they default on their debts, devalue their money and politics is in tu, ssh l. a new politichern comes along, well'll call him pushin. he is a formal colonel in the ss and becomes mom alreadyhowou cky and he tand wees over as prime minister and finally as president. i won't say rslch council but takes over as president. we f twl pretty queazy about ths and the pols and the czechs and the danes danes and the dutch fl twitchy about it becrefse they have bad enemy arrives the ss. we say the ss did some preo sy howud things. that was bad. well agree oh, not 30s, 1940s, but push knick

wassic -- pushin was in the nderentrin intelligence and they weren't as bad and the ss attracted the brightest and the best and that guy has brains. he speand wes tird tw 2014 langs and we swallow hard and try to calm down the former captive arytions of the thie it rslch ad we say, wn itve got to get on wh the german federation. and everything is okay. and that is preo sy mhapph an analmeay. what dlp we do wrong? not much. eventually i would answer it this way. me k you think that colonel pusn was saying the munich and the -- were legal, and if you dare have ge, sp momers'llent nor e dokng there were no death chambers at auschwitz, that is exactly what we have in russia now.

ndeur oresasions in the last six montcall , mainstream russian media, not -- mainstream russian media e dokng that it was done. that is ed theocialent to the holocaust. that makes me really scared. >> good answer. and i want to ask one more d theestion and then open it upo everyone else, which is, what way do you thinic the historical truth-telling has had in prctan feing russians or inducig ordinary folks to yearn for a way of rec momturing their dieatness somehow? you had obviously a lot of truth-telling which, in a sense, destroexad the idea of the communist revolution, the

boifhevik revolution as a good thing i'm tacked stalin and leni sa the reachhowuck and so nderm,fina ad a sensor did you not, of -- a sense, did you not, of a real drift among russians who e dw themselves suddenly as without an honorable and noble history? how does that figure in all of this? only okay. in the book idon- i n twd to -- okay. heard of deitrick bon -- who was heard of willy brandt? an feay, germanew can ltellk bo fier res who fought natz eu sis with pride, and there is a -- it's possible for germanew to - there is a german history there which is studied with impressive people that germans can be proai of.

manst try a litprce experndwent. i have to just get to the right page. i'll read out some more natioes and i want to s twdon- pi'ple he come to my talks before are not allowed to stick their hands up. soopy. trokng todon- to do them from memory. fineberg, here we are. hands if if you know who those were. right. that this dme krealrence.

slght russians who on -- 1968, can't imagine, went to red square to demonstrate asainst the overwe aet invasio sa and ty were arrested within seconds. one of them was a real hero. i thougdig i'd find out what happened. and the wholl be -- celebrated. it was really difficult -- i didn't want to cheat and phone pee, dle urick iwe aust tried to use sources ad find out what happened. it was really dme kfi fuust . they dis mompeared. these pi'ple ih anented the modn human rights movement.

it was the beginning of hadean rights, within russia. ot -traoe itinary dit oficult conditions. that is something russians should be really proan fei of. so when pi'ple see this -- i'm celel.ating the incredible bravery of the russians who stuck up at a tndwe when we in the west may have thoe. ig there's no chance in hell. so -- but the trouble is that so -- but the trouble is that putinism doesne. history. edibtini ur play military musicf the stalin era, blast it out of loudspeakers out of the e the s, the collaoulde of the sctiet union? imagine the president of germany, bushin, the collaouldef the third rslch. you can block this -- it was unhappy, i'm sorry. it was a criminal regime, killed whellions of pi'pl k

russherns, your fellow citizens, rest in peace. how can that be such a catastrophe? i talked towe aeff about this ad y eife i mentioned, try and get a really big internet historical archive where russherns can ltellk and s tw wt is gsh ng on, and anybody here who can write in russian, write the crefse of freedom in russipa s on russian w taipedia and the controversial stuff, the page for the ware d% ca-- all the historical contrctersies, where the lokng stalinist version is still the official version, and then and getting there, say, hang o sa hern its the sou. and e. engage in the debate. we can win these arguments, and pee, dle out there are dsh ng i. that is thedon- on which the battle of freedom in russia is

being fought, being fought ols% ãwaistory and on the internet. we have astrunition but we're nt using it yet. tions. we have a traveling microthe io. please use it and identify yourself as you begin. we would apprewesate that. anyone l tae to starm,? only iread lcte really provocate questions. they say you're too naive about mr. edibtin. only tom, formerly was assocherd closely with this organization, and i think, ed, you're as l.illiant asker and i really momprecherte your comments you. mentioned ukraine. in the new issue of freedom in the new issue of freedom hous k addresses, of the former nonbaltic soviet republics, ukraine is a little bit ahead of all

do sishill. so you have two countries potentially on the right road to democratic practices. can putin tolerate thavo in the next 12, 18 months, will we see a near broad exercise of power that will do everything possible to eli whearyte those growths of democracy? >> well, tom, it's -- i would like to thingdon- thinic that russhern has enoe. problems at home not to bother about what is happening outside. and i f twl sorry for medvedev r edibtin or whoever is going to take over. the economy has some very . inflatio sa dme kfi fuust y of spending money without it being being stolen. infrastructure, public services, all these things would tax a gcternment, let alone one

that wants to get involved in ventures al.resly w it's encoura you'ng the russian- the germaemlin has really not -- they started with considerable re the orange re thige ition and they blew ite and time again. in ukraine they're in favor of a in and ahe kreto victory for the good side. corruption. i say scandalionsed when ushen company taoved to putin. one example of what the creme -- kremlin stands for. at it this com woulnew which es by stealing. steaif from shareholders, gas producer, from customers, steals from the train woulexars of rusa steaif from everyone. the money goes to bank accounts

and disappearsful. we have no idea who the real benefiwesaries are and one bank thinks it's okay to be associated with this and why price water house ctellpers this y to aan feiit it, i do not understand. and why they're not willing to say to putin wn itre getting rlp of interndwmediate area co notanies. they only come up when gas is involved. very odd so, yes, gi'rgher is we% iner. it's smaller, and the georgian leadership is making bad mistakes, we can agr tw oip one thing i worry about is there may be adon- we may see provocation of georgia into doing something stupid and that hiuld be potentiallylkery

blangerous. i don't know what's going to happen. even the econo whest d. whest d. we hhave ne. the scriy? my feeling is that if this sort of xenophobia is not going away and i readkeduotes, medvedev is being portrayed as this eternal optimistic so-called russia experts who always fall in lcte with every russian leadekn medisedprov represents a sharp n towards economic and political liberm,y in russipa and i'm not -- within the last 24 hours, my people who ought to know better. so i'm interested to s tw ay saying, tat the econo whec you're terrorists recording on business standards in the world, but he is heating we cr a job at the cato institu,

i can see. russian ngos are not allowed to operate freely in britain. haves ist noticed that one. l.itish counsel is a front for british intelligence. this isgiaust -- i u.s. remembe, es e notloexaes were hauled from their bed in the middle of the night to be inte faogated for the crime of hirking for a foreign organization. that was was a pretty unpleasant echo of a prehiny unpleasant woulst. i wanted to establish my credentials as someone who is distancing himself from the woulst, and i want to say something about british council, i might save it's a pity some of countries have ove faearitised,t i would not go down this rresd he's gone down. >> next question. provocative or otherwise.

on of the eu leadership's view of russia today? do you think they're ever gsh ng do you think they're ever gsh ng to adoy? oach to russher? >> good question. it's bad but it's not -- i would say -- i have s a nd -- i thinic the long slow rally has b doun. we starting from a great low point. my telhey'hone. - the long slow rally of the west is gone. we have seen germany, astoria, netherlandss, italy and francont all dsh ng bilateral deaif with the kremlin in do fines of european security. and that is bre% ins pro wheses. continuinorr but there's b twn some important

things on the other side. i think when the mowas tried to overturn the swedish atioignssador's car on its way o the australian embassy that struck a chord, they were attacking white pi'ple. the c% ber ahinack on people who were totally uninterested in the comple pies of post communist history got worried. i strongly recommend if you read -- i reference in the book -- the whore all on my web site so you don't have to type in a long string of digits and numbers go to the web site and click shows how very serious western gld er'llent agencies gt really, really worried by some of the tactics used asainst estonia. one lit doue thing which i think exemplifies what europe can do.

estonia joined cheng, which is vie d free travel in euri te. you sub whet a series a of -- visa black list. estonia's list included all these natioes and they coulds io shi tan ng, coulds ist go to lo. couldn't do anything. that was europe's -- it was triou. woulrm, of the decline in -- there's -- when britain, i think, privately -- may have been one reason w, r he was dior rated so sharply. these european structures do work and have to be seriously incodigenient for the bad guy. we sho wod do more of it. so we're starting from a very low base. i have every reason to be whec notatient and disan npointi ic opinion in europe is now starting

czechistophobeic. i won - say russiani thobeic - they have so many coming to visit and so much cultural interchange. whecf you ltellss at the pvers . and h poll on russia's image in the world, its shows even in germany ogitl rating of putin of 70%, which is -- it was down to 20% in 2007. good job, vladimir. well done. ic oan nion is really twitc, r now about russia, and the elite to some extent, whether it's s n twd or naivete have yet to go in the e dme dienection. >> any evidence that has impact on policy? public oan nion in euri te or te u.s.? ted wi in theory we live in frem if you can advocate public opinion and t% ine notice -- i

meant on russian pe -itics. ted wi they could have done it o weeks later. it was supposed to be an -- sentndwent of russian youth, and mentiddenly it doesn't exist anymore. some great authenticity. - i thinic they -- some of them are a bit worried about access to financial markets. one of the problems when you get vee -i, --ery rich, you can -tsp the moeman in gold bars and hundred dollar bills under your ben exaltsints.hey't a couple millin dollars in the safe because i thought it was huge amount of money. and when you have billions and magllion0s and billions of dollars, you need western financial markets. there was an a cument i m% ine in the winning section of the book is that we need to have the same rules on asset laundering as we

have on mon% an lay ndering, 30 o. we% 40 years you could have turned if we in at the stave suitcase btiefles no prestions asked. well done, sir. first started to worry about money laundering, pi'ple s a nd you can - stop banhave t t% ining monethe s that's what banks do. might as well stand between a hunge -i schtelll boy and his l. this is a bank t% ining mon% an. we said, no, we're going to have rules you cannot play in large prantitieses of cash you can - oypl a nn where they came from. and slowly that's begun to have an affect and mon% an lay ndering is more ticket, and i the lem of the financial action task force should also do asset lay ndering sogiaust as you can - get into the finan% inial system with money you also can't sell stolen companies on the westey a we crm,unately gtelld-ste -en ities on the western financial markets and if you

have tough r woes on related woulrm,y transactions you can % ine things difficult for these pseudo companies to get into westey a finan% inial marbleg s that hi wod cay se them some problems. >> hello. i'm with voice of america, thank you for the inskshtful presentation. ted wi spe% in up a lihinle bit. >> i'm sorry. >> not hearing you. >> in lkswe i of cevt se -o's recognition --ts.evld orrys recognition i'm wondering how liablely russian to recognize and whether there's anew thing e can do other than w a nt and see how russia will react regarding georgia's separatist r doiot ted wi russians have b twn nutsd because they've been nuts to recognize that. it's like swiss ch twse in terms

of minorities. th% an are having great difficulty in hanging on to the north caulk cause caucasus. pei tle would want to have the e dme thing. russian interest is actually nil. you can do -- various mon% an nder things you do, a gd place to go on he -iday and things like that. these are pawns on a chess mucarn th% an are things you can do to mable the gutsrgians nervous bui don't think they're going -- it's ttell dangerous for the germaemlin to set this sorm, of precedent. they may wish we hadn't done it with kosovo. s neat paradox here. did wyanoechs the germaemlingiag up and down and saying this is a breach of international lely and .

when they becatioe indhey'enden, russians said, welcome aboard. so, once you start looking into pret g s f wol of he -es. i think with coast sew kosovo, they got what they wanten europe and u.s. d on eched. large cge inics of euri tean puc opinion blaming the americans. as if it's the americans fay eu ing the genaheche. ted wi my name is molly o'neillh the johns hopkins university. i want to draw you out amucut didsiness relation han nan es ad investment between russia and the western europeans and so ot igiaust lied to a ex, i don - thinss -- are you saying that yu don't think there's any

reputable russian com woulnew ,n ast her wor. so,, none sho wod be -- ted wi not at all. >> because -- so i'm glad to at ified thro t sp there hi wod be a way to do a better vetting -- >> yes. >> okay. i as n tw with that. i persoif lly thinic that to the oytent that western companies, for example, recently the consr.er gtell. so, arepa lht e the dete cent and things lht e that, big acquisitions by western companies into russia and i tend to believe that lht e mevt putse who read the economist this is desirable and will hopefully bring about better gld erif nce ld er the longer term. not so provocative. other thing, i would also maybe tend to believe that at the ma cin it may be desirable to have western shareholders in something like gas. >ed tolet me m% ine retsothing tely clear ion tm nast saying at all thate should have any kind of financial blockade. it's one of the great reason for

hope is the growth of the russian business class and economic independence is still bet econoeasc indhey'endence anf pei tle are running businesses and they're worried about their costs and competition and share price and they s tw hksh taxes, that's great, natural, the statement thing we want to - we have over here. and i hi te --ery much that the business class turns into middle class and just as they want more ast ha twdoust, they want more l ast ha twdom and l doality and s great. we should do everything to encour wae it and we sho wod be ung if you e a real russian company, you're welcome here. come see our venture can nitalis and we sho wod m% ine acquisitions when they're there, and that is good, too. my worry is about a disproporm,ioif te dhey'endence. i get worried when putsple's livelihood is so tied up in russia that they lose skswe i of

the moral and fiscal dndwension and therve bs the hurrah chorus when i was in moscow, people so determine there pkouldes.t be a degitthing ation becay se they e making so much money. they would good to extraordinary lengths to te -i to sqporpk stos in the econoeasst and the ft tht might be bad nor market. then when things turn up, putspe ch yougiaust gast putin wrong. heavy ahinempts to try to shift it to a more positive direction, and it worbled to some extenn i nast iced in these nverspa ans which take very large -- paid for by rescuer entity -- restete - the russian entities and gloe -i fly the accomplishments of the putin regime. so i think wegiaust n twd a sene of proporm,ion here. and during the cold war, if you did business with russia, that

hi wod was d twply susan % inious. armand hatiomeal, wondered whate was up to out in that doesn't -- it's obviously a bit prepossess ? ros to -- preposterous to say it's referee helpsible. we need to have a smell test, how expeved this is the com wou to russipa how mat yh pressure n the kremlin put on them as a result. es are coming out? the best exa. ile, what i don't want, is this german gas industry where the ei ewe -- ei us te -iing to do the rkswe i t. and ene cy security is national security and we shouldn't let our energy pe -icy be detereasnd new ,st by the interesg s of consumers and the shareholdes anymore we did the interest of wean nons com woulnies during te colder war when ig s catioe to

buying weapons. trying to do the right thing and it's b twn blocked by germanew because the german ene cy industry doesn't want it chiefly because they don't want to star, - and that is an oyatiopl my what i don't want. >> raidee free europe. i wanted to take you back to one of your orient if l theories you pri teved can which was you didn't know exactly the answer - but now i% an gwnng to ask you to thick more amucut it. you hypotheses that maybe putin -giaust crtellcur. what is the tndweline? are they just looking to make enough money until they can retire and ret oue at 6 onte65 or don't the s. to

have a permanent elite that can continue to steal and so you have a second generation of -- tellcur and do we have to wt for the grandchildren to revolt against the ou grand woulrents who were the crodones? what's the tndweline? >> i honestly don't know. vee -i dry fitet eu. in the 1990s you could get to know the people around yeltsin. it was not closed odes. - with somemucdy who could tell you things, you could talk to the oligarchs. and they were desperate for repa ectaidlity and the west sed it by the key kilo, or yard.

and trying to change his spog s. how far am i gwnng to get along, what benent imarks aim setting. it's sealed now. i think never given an intervivs to a forsqprogiaouy aalist. it's dry fitet eu that people -- they don't even know what they look like, let alone what theed% thi@i so. it's dry fitet eu to go back -i say go back to there the tax machine. tegimine -ogy was what we used % use can to te -i tonalites what was going on in the kremlin and you read between the lines, ltek at oblaerare who catioe fiwert i to get in lines and so on whose picture was on whose wall and you te -i to work out what was going on from cthing es. ecahat is completely obsolete

skill. like the slide rule. carbon pan ner. and now we have back asain. we e -- that's all we've got. we just don't know. i wish i knew the answeelt ry i dech i would write to the economist at once. >> you've no doubt heard about attempts to get r doistered on the new york stock exchang my ad what do you think of those chances, and, secondly, london madets -- puti luyels of listing you can have, a chis, over counter market levels, and i think the thing about trans woulrency in these r woes whient i eif bles you to find things out and i loved it when the juice company, seemed to have the rkswe i to seled tne inn evee -i marblet in d nobody else had to the right to

sell juice there at all, and th% an catioe to the nvers york stok ent iange and had to do an sec filing. great reading on the web site. s things lht e e peritaks ingiaail for organized crime. criminal proceedings for various ,blbe . it sby td, assets is under l dol challenge. even mentioned they're frequently referred to as bsqng members ofbetw- all in the sec filings. banks said if you want to get on a listing in new york you have to do this. so they dech it. it was there. we read it. and i thought, well, fair enough. you may be a bunent i of murders clandits but at least you admit you're murderous bandits and you're coming to the westey a stahk en hange and you may be traung to benefit shareholders.

so i wouldn't say hats off but best if they ha ev - done it. how i f twl. these markets have rules. let's just make sure the rules are enforns.y. and we don - get oyemt oions bsqng mnot ce or f% ine answers being given. if they do that and presumably n in the ou related woulrm,y transactions. >> kathy, u.s. commission on international religious freedom. isc%sterday i asked you amucut t i thi@i is the way in which russia or the -- i should say the kremlin is building a wall around ig self in many respehee. and one of them you mentioned that nashi has been closed down keyr now. didt there are other s clanilar s noups. inn fact there's been ap formed that is similar for the

undente12 set. . >> right. co wod ndeneventes,ite get in the if me. didt there's another group that is perhaps even more noxious which actually eng waes in ngsco. so i've been seeing -- in fact, just the day, pretty report which upon obviously is a good sun. apparently the moscow police finally set up a unit to protect foreign citizens in moscow. of course that didn't help. but in any case that's one aspect of this of this growing phenomenon. but another aspect is the cult of the state. and i think it's connected to

these groups. that is internal politics. on the international scene i think russian exceptional as an is also a very important part of this way in which russia wants to be perceived. is an international organization . >> got it. quite a bit in my book. the unleash something that it can't control. much to teach people politics to organize the demonstration, the

people to death and that kind of thing. so i -- the state, it's interesting. a section in the book. these words don't really translates. it doesn't sound right. the whole russian vocabulary needs quite a lot of elaboration before we can make sense of about what people are talking about. i think sovereign democracy, this mixture of autocracy was invented by -- nicholas i and fits walt we have now, and i hate the word narrative. sounds academic but maybe

dominant story is this is not the only slice of russian history and you want to -- play this game of what would happen if putin was writing british history books or american history books. you reside find rather unpleasant authoritarian figures who were played as a hero and mccarthy would be elevated to a great fighter for freedom rather than someone trying to discredit the anticommunist cause and you can place the games by taking country's histories history pulling stance. strand out. you have to effect the historical fight and show there oar ways of looking at this. the way the kremlin tells it is not the only way.

>> what is the thought of the population? >> my friends don't want to talk on the phone with me. we do skype chat. that is still regarded -- and often other people -- the days when you could just pick up the phone and have an interesting conversation about what the fsb is up to, they're gone. i don't think they have succeeded in creating a widespread climate of fear about meeting foreigners in general, but it is true -- people now get hauled in by the fsb for having had meetings with foreigners. and reflexes in the state are there and things are still chaotic, the country is pretty closed. still a lot of freedom, particular freedom to travel, which is very important. if you don't like it, always good abroad and that's the safety belt. doesn't have that pressure cooker feeling we remember from

the soviet union, they're out to get in and there's no way to get away. but it's actually the trajectory is bad. what seemed -- seemed impossible four years ago seems ominous but unlikely two yearsing, seemed noms but unlikely one year ago and is happening now. >> your next. >> thank you very much. jim from the department of defense. you ruled out the military portion of the previous cold war. can you comment about the military now with the mediterranean, the provocative actions of aviation going on at the same time that we're having a major russian u.s. exercise in germany together? >> yes. >> the continuity between one hand and the other. >> i feel slightly awestruck i

should be telling the department of defense anything about this. but thank you for giving me the opportunity display my ignorance. the soviet military -- the russian military is a husk of the soviet military, and you can just go to warfare -- it's all there in russian on a web site. the exercises were their entire seaworthy surface fleet. i think they have roughly 20 ships, 20 big ships that of capable of going to sea and even some of those the record of breakdown is not great. so the submarine is supersilent, and we have seen there's some problems there. the aviation is antique. some of these planes they're sending to these -- not bombers and the rest of it. they shoe be in a museum of

military aviation, not -- the idea they're passing some kind of offensesive capability is distant, and perhaps the most glaring thing is the continuing -- dreadful failure to reform the russian land forces. if you haven't not read the book about the military, institutionalize hazing going on, it's still a real mess. and the generals buy bmws but doesn't penetrate to better living conditions for the troops.... there are tracking a lot of money into it. depending on how you counted its 120 of the 140 author somewhere in between. but still that's quite a lot of money if your adversaries georgia, moldova or even

possibly estonia and latvia or lithuania. there is enough there to do damage. and it is going up remarkably quickly, very, very rapid increase. now i suspect it's likely that the military industrial base is so rundown of the don't have the skills to make the most of the money they're putting in. certainly they don't have the shipyard capable even of repairing the one they're trying to sell to india. from the point of view it's still not. what i do worry about coming inside information is a worry about the sales of advanced weapons. for example this underwater brocket, super cavitation, it sounds like something from mike's super cal a fragile mystic xbla dutchess. sexually very scary.

coke's water vapor which means it can go very fast, 200 kilometers an hour under water. and that's quite scary if you're relying on aircraft carriers. if they start sending us to the iranians or the chinese which i read is happening or the belfast ship to ship nestle, they change the calculation whether we send a carrier group -- week, america, the carrier group to defend taiwan are what happens in western farmers. there's a kind of asymmetric which is different from what we can actually do in terms of the old fashioned confrontation. we have so many thousand tanks cut you have some money thousand tanks. the population of 140 million in the demographics. i can see is coming back.

what's really troubling is that they feel the need to do this. that is the really -- why on earth i you having staff exercises, and they are only staff exercises on how to recapture the baltic states. what possible reason is there for doing that? >> well, do you think they might want to recapture the baltic states? >> i would like to think that article five would make me think that was a bad idea. you know, one of the things with article five his aides great. and i heard from friends in brussels that they have been doing some paper exercises on how reenforce the baltic states if it came on the -- they can. you know nato has. we have a very small squadron. they seem to miss everything that goes on. it's not as of defense of the baltic state, it's a bit like west berlin.

there symbolically vital, pretty much indefensible. we use them as a trip wire. if you attack and that things will happen elsewhere. but that's not a huge comfort. you know, i have no idea, your perspective, talk afterward and i'm delighted. >> george washington university, i am intrigued by the mention of trying to list on the nyse. could you comment on the pluses and minuses from the russian point of view as far as the degree to which that could limit them or make them behave. from the western point of view about basically, you know, if it turns out that a lot of u.s. pension funds and upholding a lot of russian companies they're is a stronger interest in maintaining good relationships. >> the thinking among the

oligarchs in the 1990's is to be -- steal as much as you can as fast as you can. that worked pretty well. and what he did was to say there may be another way of doing this. that see if we can get the share price up. and he did that. and didn't believe he would do it. when i arrived in moscow in 981 of the first articles i wrote was about the fact that he had just hired. and an investment bank, the pinstripe brigade. and i had been covering all lines. that thought this was laughable. you have these guys with the council backed out, everything they have done, the aids, the refuse to speak. you know, headquarters guarded by men with submachine guns.

this is not to be taken seriously i watched and turn the wrong. the time i wrote an article saying he couldn't do it, but a thousand dollars in the shares by the town of on the apologized one well built system. and i said i will apologize. i didn't think you could do it and you did. you become a very rich man. that is an achievement. and i think that lesson has not been lost on people. if you are -- if your world consists of shares in russian companies and uc the being traded on exchanges pushing the share price up that will make you a lot richer, perhaps more richer. it would be different, but that

is why they want to get. it want to raise money which they badly need because they need to invest. also they become richer. you can use that. >> go ahead. >> mr. lucas you mentioned earlier about the role of truth telling and challenging. i was wondering, you knew and what you see as the role for journalists in the current russian political climate, if there's a wall or fed is already been muzzled to a point of infections. >> ghali it would have to be really, really bright. i mean about sport. consumer trends. 95 percent of russian journalism is not about policies. i was in the deaths of the other

day. ninety-nine channels, none of it was about policy. all this kind of stuff. he can make it very political. in that direction a lot of people don't. what is left is of philosophy. the majority shareholder. it's good to have a good journalist. but that is pretty much it. you times which is good. if any of you have any control over anybody's advertising budget. i suggested that the tourist

board took out large investments they at least could be intimidated. and you know tickets advertised. sometimes it's obviously very good. sometime this nonsense. much better. there's still a lot of interesting stuff to read, a lot of journalists to find ways of writing it. the trajectory is in the wrong direction. the space is getting more and more narrow. one of the things you can do. we shall see. >> western journalism. how difficult is it to get of the senate?

>> i think there were eight british journalists who could not get visas. the russians they said five of them can try again, three shouldn't bother. in no you get on the blacklist. you can't get off. it's not quite like in the soviet union were once you been deported you never get back in again. you are risking other people's perhaps livelier than perhaps security. he of a confidential source in the russian government organization it tells you things you know he might get a visit from the fsb if the find is been talking. so i wouldn't say the kind of plan this time days of trying to reach people.

but it's always pretty tricky. i think there's a degree of caution. we were aware that what we do can get people and trouble. so we have to be a bit careful. the circle of reporting a bit narrow. people in the kremlin and be told. are you just structure do you really believe this nonsense. >> thanks. it's good to see you again. i want to ask one of the good questions which is transition to what? what's next? a lot of people in washington still think about democracy and free markets acting perhaps correctly would talk as though he has rollback what had been a more less and point. this is something we spend a lot of time on worrying about arguing.

i want to know what your thoughts are. >> well as an economist and know it's much better to predict the past in the future. one can see this experiment running at a steam. it is a brilliant paper called reassessing russia, british military think tank which is about 1 millionth of the size of its counterparts in america or counterparts. he says to sit back and let the contradictions work themselves out. these people and not just cricket and scary but they're also incompetent. you know, a new gas field from scratch. partial exceptions. that was actually done earlier. russia is facing a gas shortage. ahead long winters. the very dependent on gas and

turkmenistan. so being optimistic, the key thing we can do is to regain on wall course. at the end of the cold war two things in conjunction. the west did an admirable and enviable just at the time the soviet system really collapsed. my worry is that my best russian friends and not particularly political. so actually what is really the difference? you know, you have organized crime, a top politician. you have -- politics, most people get on with their lives. why should remind some much? so much of what he does is replicated in the west. and so that's why i feel it's not just a struggle between the

last and the kremlin but a struggle within russia for the future of russia because these people about for russia and the struggle within the west as well >> in wrong. >> the lady at the back. >> my question is a lot of the rhetoric using, the cold war rhetoric, i have read your book yet, but a ban on the block. mention in your suggesting in limiting russia from a al qaeda. his like a lot of the rhetoric to ostracize russia about you feel that is helping to mitigate or really minimize the threat? , assuming that is your goal. >> well, i did not quite incident the book.

not give you a quick one. we have to separate pragmatism. i think we should be engaging russia much more than we have done. from example on strategic groups did it ministration as the wrong in saying we have lots. we don't have to talk to anybody i'm not an expert on this, but i don't think it makes america safer if russia is the strategic balance is so skewed in favor of america that russia goes to launch a war. worried about its first strike. we should be talking about space i really feel strongly that we need to talk, particularly in russia. we can talk in afghanistan. is not as if this movement there. global warming, all these big issues. russia is perhaps not a giant company but china and india, it's a big country. there's been a failure to some extent to engage on these big

issues. this team of russian joined the council of europe. the trajectory was very different. it looked as though there was a lot of bumps and imperfections, but were show was going toward the same sort of model of political freedom that characterized. it is no longer the case. we have midnight interrogations' , psychiatric incarceration of dissidents happening again and again. twice a pretty scary. three times, four times, five times, six times been hit his family still doesn't know where yes. it took 40 days to get them out of the psychiatric hospital. this is something the kremlin feels no shame about coupled

with this extraordinary jen a phobic rhetoric. if you're comparing americans with the third reich you can't then expects to sit down on a family vacation. we have to make it clear that words and deeds have consequences. if they want to continue despite the xenophobic rhetoric and continue, cyber attacks on all the stuff, you cannot take faraway countries to which we know nothing. it is our allies. then there have to be consequences. the regulation, russia cannot be a member of your. in the al qaeda to my always felt that al qaeda was a botched compromise. even on islamic terms russia is not -- it makes much more sense to talk to rush of a semi we

talk to china and india and brazil. and that's absolutely fine. we have lost talk about it on global imbalances, reforming the imf. let's seven c-span orgy 14 and talk about these economic issues if there's going to be a democracy that has to be. dennis. we have to send a signal that this is not anti russian are anti russia. as the kremlin and the things that they say and do the we object to. when that stops with will be delighted. russia -- of rhode about this in the book. one of the release striking things that the kremlin has gone into, for a policy. in the alliance between russia and china is an alliance between

to fund the kremlin may claim a nato's coming to our borders. there a thousand times more frightened. so -- it just doesn't make sense . china doesn't even like it. much more long-term. since through this exhausting anti-semitic speeches. russia's a great friend of the muslim world. you want to be a great friend of the muslim world? this is a genocidal attack on the muslims. and actually if your kind of an nativist chauvinist slavic russia you might be quite scared . one could make the characterization.

so dense -- was left? friends with the west. fine. a european country. great. but russia can't be friends with the west. you cannot just be friends with germany. the west is not about bilateral old-fashioned kind of concept of the inner relations. russia and france can be friends it's about values. the stalinist coast that hangs over, once that's gone, ones that historical hangup is gone and russia can be a russian country. nobody will be more pleased to announce. >> what extent is their cooperation between russia and the west on counter-terrorism? intelligence sharing? >> last time i was looking at the secret file which will get copied in on. i don't know. i just don't know.

there is some overlap. incorporation was quite good after september 11th. in know, the kgb often know quite a lot about the islamic terrorism given some of the links that existed a few years back. asher was useful. but i think this is all stuff -- and you can never really know what's going on. i do know that the fsb involvement. we are not talking the fsb because of this act of terrorism perpetrated on the streets of london which endangered the lives. that was a big deal and britain. >> you mentioned the paper.

he mimics a very important point that energy dependence is not a one-way streets. russia does not have the infrastructure descend a lot of their energy in the other direction. has to send it to the west. in that connection what do you think might happen at some point time when because of economic circumstances they're is a real serious problem the road, what does that mean for the leaders in moscow, those who want to go another direction and said this is impossible to continue stealing and manipulation. others say we have to get real and become a modern democratic society or something equivalent. >> well i do really recommend reading -- it's in english and russian. is a former energy member, analyzed and really quite scary detail the weakness of the

russians and in particular gas. there are references to it in the book. how russia codes with a gas shortage is very interesting. the country that knows russia best and the companies that know russia bust of the germans based on the 30-year gas contracts. my suspicion is as the internal price rises it becomes relatively less lucrative to export to faraway countries. western people paid real money in nobody else but anybody. the ukrainians are russians, they're charging the russians themselves more so the benefits of export diminished. less export gas to go around. the germans will be at the front of it. i would now want to be at the

back. this is a weapon the using right now. there in talks with the romanians. the romanians have a spot price. you do a long time gas contract with us to be ..

>> do they believe the united states would help them if the russian military got out of that western europeans and the united states would help them fight it does he go phobia got out of control?s. >> to excellent questions i don't know what the answer is. do we continue to support the pro-democracy people who, to put it mildly, have not been successful so far, but -- or, do we try to engage with the people who have murdered some of them and locked many of the other ones up in order to save independence? in five years time, there may not be a bell ruse.

the people are trying discreet. it was interesting, no softy when it comes to russia, and no softer with democracy. he's received the russian ambassador at the foreign ministry many a very formal way to say poe land land is ready to talk. now, those talks become substantial, but something has to happen. we're not demanding immediate dispatch on the coast or even a full independence inquiry, but perhaps let a couple people out of jail. give us something. the response has been quite positive. there's a lot of people that do not wish to end up as provenn issue civil servants and are scared. the nationalism of the red-green kind strengthened, although the red-white nationalism failed to

ignite from efforts of the opposition. he does not respond. he'll do something bad one of these days, get a cold, and if i was him, i would be, you know, watching what i eat. >> i think we have time for one more question. is there someone who would like to ask it? >> i understand that a lot of what you described, very few things to be enthusiastic about it, but you've suggested that there is few alternatives, so what coyou say to those this is far from being the world's alternative? >> >> yeah. it could be worse.

you know, i remember in 1993 when i was living the board of states, winning 23% in the elections, and people said, he could be russia's next leader. that was scary, proposing to blast and incorporate fin land back into the russian federation. you know, there's, you know, there was very interesting a coo, and the election is too risky. it can always get worse. as i said in the beginning, i'm not saying it's good, far from it. i criticize a lot. i'm not saying everything that happened is bad. i see why russians are glad about the stability. trouble is i think it's fake. i think it is not a stable system when you have absolutely no idea what's going on, when the success or two successes produce like rabbits out of the

hat, and then they disappear, and this is not yet -- fuelings is highly -- it's highly unstable. we don't know, and iceland -- a lot of thing, got this right, a piece in the times the other day saying there's a coo. it would be the way his clan has been sidelined. i think the -- what did putin do right? fiscal consolidation was right, and it was destabilizing, and the finance ministry functions really pretty well. i think in the first, the land legislation, all that, that was good. most of the reforms started, and some were completed under putin, other things brand new, a flat tax, that was great. worked everywhere. worked in russia.

it tailed off quickly. after the revolt, the reform, we didn't see -- we didn't see anything. like, the -- the administrative reform, something every first communist country grapples with, the next communism bureaucracy, efficient, accountable, transparent, really difficult. this is been done so much of every russian i know they claim, vast, predatory buick roar sigh, all levels, so caught on the efforts, and now i hope that is going to be fiscal change because people don't like paying off incompetent bureaucrats and seeing that wasted and all the rest of it, but yeah, who do i vote for if i was a russian? it's difficult. putin? great choice. >> well thank you very much.

[applause]

>> the millenials generation are having a lot of time -- a hard time getting started with life without hot style economy pate nobody into a system for today's retirees they have no realistic chance to get when they retire so there needs to be rebalancing of the social construct. a very difficult challenge for this country because not only social security and medicare are half of the budget but to it is symbolically the pure state in a public policy that as a

country we are a community in this together. visa program -- programs that affect everybody the old math does not work.

[applause] >> well, thank you, guys, and i love that john is making his way f >> thank you. i love that john makes his way off the stage.ic as always for your intereste, in the the heritage and tradition for hosting the it is nice to come bredder audienc. let m out child of soviet, and i sort of have the culture in my blood. i have the language in my head, most of the time, and so it's --

i spent quite a bit of time in russia, and that allows you to sort of get a different bit of a sense, and what i'm struck by is that historically, and, you know, by "historically" i don't mean decades, but in recent years, we, americans, republican or democrat, we tend to look at russia as one that is striding very large on the world stage, and, by the way, you know, crack a newspaper in the last couple weeks, and you understand exactly why we do that. we've seen russian president putin really cut quite a striking geopolitical image strong arming us into the steel sering deal, but "strong arming" is the wrong word. that suggests we were more than willing to accept a deal walking us off the ledge of military action against syria. by the way, it's a deal that is very useful for the obama administration. i would argue, much more useful for the russian federation

because it enthrien shrines the stability of the regime; right? it it was an open question assad would not be in power before, it's not a question now. we need him in power to provide us with access to the nuclear weapons we have to dismantle. not only that, but, you know, the russians, all sorts of ancillary benefits accrue because syria has been since 1971 the weigh station and home port for russia's mediterranean flotilla, so this power preserving stability is a huge coo for the russian federation. it's the tangible benefits, for us, i think, remain to be seen. from damascus, from the discussion about da damascus, yu saw president putin jet off to tehran in which he talked about russia's cooperation with the iran's nuclear program and the potential reactivation of a sale

of controversial s3 # 00 missiles to the iranian regime, something tabled during the era in moscow. again, not great progress, but all is symptomatic, i think, of something that we're all sensing when we look at u.s. foreign policy. u.s. foreign policy in the middle east is not very strategic as of late, and not assertive, and as a result, we've been in effort by russia to sweep in, take the strategic advantage, and the russian government has done a successful job, and as a result, it protocols an image of a country on the march. if you look at what's happening within russia itself, it's, i think, very clear that that perception is wrong. russia may appear strong now, internationally, but internally, it's approaching a transformation. i would argue the transformation that's going to be when it sets in, every bit as earth shattering as the collapse of

the soviet union was from two decades ago, and this upheaval is really the project of three trends emerging now, but are on trajectory to intersect in a very dramatic way. to the first is very simply that russia is dying. demographically speaking. for those of you not demographers, first of all, good for you because it's not the most exciting of professions, but those who are demographers, you know 2.1 is the magic number. during the life span of a woman, the fertility life span of o woman, she should create one child to replace herself, one child to replace her husband and a fraction thereof to account for natural disasters, hurricanes, what have you, and a population at replenishment rate. 2.1 remains stable. the united states is pretty much

there. we can talk about the drivers of what drives u.s. population, but what's clear is that a whole bunch of countries, certainly in europe, are well below replenishment rate, and russia ranks near the bottom. russia, according to u.n. statistics is at 1.6 meaning russia, every generation is constricted. what this looks like in practice if you read russian statistics, and, you know, read the russian census is that russia, as a result of both natural deaths and of immigration from the russian federation, is constricting by close to half a million people every year. putin in december of 2012, when he was giving one of his presidential campaign speeches, talked about the fact that according to the trend line that his government was seeing, by if this is not amealuated by 2050,

the entire population, 142.9 million now, shrinks down by a quarter, to 107 million people. right? that is a massive constriction of the human capital that russia has currently and can access as it moves into the future. the reasons for this, i think, are many-fold, but worth drawing them out. the first is that russia, unlike the united states, never experiences a peace dividend after the end of the cold war. in terms of investiture in social, cultural, and educational infrastructure. the way -- what this looks like in practice is that life expect tap sigh, median life expectd tan sigh for males today is the same as it is in madagascar, age 60. the age for females is 73, same as in saudi arabia, but both numbers are a decade to a decade

and a half lower than the analog governments in europe and in the united states; right? so part of the reason for this is that as a function of russian gdp, health care expenditures in russia are constant since the mid-1990s. the russian government is not spending more money on the welfare of the people, and it shows, 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, stuck together not because they liked each other, because we know that we have members in our family that we coiled just as soon export to other cities, but because they had no choice. because populations were locked in place, and there was an an extended family network 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. 6 o% 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, which is multiple children, is an endangered species. cow could have a family with one child, but very rarely families with four, five, or six children, necessary for demographic replenishment. you also have a rampant culture of abortion in russia, which i think it's useful to stress on a number of levels. during the cold war, and for those of you what that are students of the cold war, you know that abortion was functionally the only available means of contraception. it was used widespread with terrible effects on female health and female fertility. this has not changed all that much. you've seen trend lines which

suggest that there has been more awareness on the part of russian authorities, in terms of the negative effects, and also even some investment. 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 annually. that's equivalent to 300 an hour for a population of 142 million people. this is where it gets more grisly. if you listen to russian doctors, private sector experts, they tell you that that network of publicly reported abortions is actually just the tip of the iceberg. in fact, the number could be twice that. it could be twice that because of private clinics, abortions off the books, not reported. that means that russians are aborting the equivalent of 2% of their live pop powlation every year, and then in a very real sense, killing off prospects for demographic growth in the

process. layered on top of that is something that russian experts themselves call an epidemic in hiv/aids. this is a complex phenomena, so to unpack it for you, aids came to the russian federation because of the way the soviet union was a closed society, functionally later in historic terms, than it did to europe and the united states. when it hit the russian federation, it hit with ajen janes, and 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, curling -- according to u.n. statistics, important to stress these are u.n. statistics, not the most forward-looking on demographics, but the most impartial because

of the statistical ag gageses for every country around the world. according to u.n. statistics, russian consumption alone accounts for more than a fifth of heroin used worldwide. since injust ainjeblght -- injectables are the transportation, this is linked to the problem they have 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 are hiv positive in u russia. you pit it out from there, and you understand why russian experts themselves talk about hiv and aids in the context of the epidemic, one nay are a very, very hard time getting their hands around and treating. the third trend, or fourth trend,