far, because you will understand at the end of this, which is what you want to do with every new book you read, you want to learn something new. you will learn what the military is all about from this book, i promise you. >> james patterson has appeared on book tv over ten times. >> now i have the great pleasure of introducing catherine stoner. kathryn stoner is the deputy director at the institute for international studies at stanford university and a senior fellow on the center of democracy, development and rule of law and the center on international security and cooperation at free man's bog le y institute. she teaches in the department of political science at stanford and in the program of

international relations and the international policy program. she holds a pa and ma in political science in the university of toronto and a phd from harvard. she was awarded an honorary doctorate. i can only hope that that came with a lifetime supply of certain things. in addition to many articles and book chapters on them tear prior rerussia here has written she is the author or so editor of six books. the most recent is the book about which she will be speaking with us today. russia rester recced, it's power and purpose in a new global order, which is hot off the oxford university presentses. we are very privileged to be amongst the first groups of people to whom she will be

speaking after the book has been published. we'll be thrilled that she has agreed to join us and to share with us her work and her ideas. please join me in virtually welcoming cat kathryn stoner. >> thanks so much jennifer. i hope everyone can hear me. let me know if you can't. i'm going to share my screen and say thank you you especially to peter to inviting me and jennifer for hosting and kelly whitaker for setting this up. i wish i was there in person, but this is the world we live in for a little while longer anyway. so, i'm going to count on you all to tell me if you cannot see my screen. but assuming -- if i hear nothing then i will assume you can. so, as jennifer mentioned, this

is a book that is actually almost still warm off the presses from oxford. it came out february 1st and it is available on amazon in time for a lovely st. patrick's day present. it is controversial lee, or provocative lee say russia resurrected, its power and purpose in a new global order. i will warn you in advance, i'm going to try and speak for only 35 or 40 minutes. i fear i'll go over that, and then we get to have questions and i believe we have an hour and a half. so, ok. so, there is a pair a docks in the perceptions of russian power. on the one hand you have mr. putin saying these things overtime that russia was never so strong as it wants to be and never so weak as it is thought to be. here he is absolutely paraphrasing winston churchill

who is paraphasing a lot of other people. and putin in 2008 saying at last russia has returned to the world as a strong state, a country that others will heed and that stand up for itself. he made that statement as russia won the right to hold the olympics in 2014. and then this more recent statement in front of the russian parliament saying that in just 30 years we have undergone changes that have taken centuries in other countries, boasting about the development path and speed of russia and speed. there are conflicting things in russia regarding the united states as well. the perception that russia is not a peer power, that it is weak, a gas station

masquerading -- whoop this should say country, by john mccain in 2014, a gas station with nuke. mitt romney paraphasing mccain in 2015 and barack obama saying it's a regional power, threatening its neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness. this was a particularly not well received statement by mr. putin himself. on the other hand we have the perception within the united states that russia is an exowe step shall threat. here is the supreme commander of nato at stanford at the time in 2015 at the same time other statements are being made saying russia is recrying a cold war settlement using force. his colleagues in the military proclaiming russia as a threat to the united states in the same year and most recently president biden when he was running for office last fall saying i think

the biggest threat to america right now in terms of breaking up our security and our alliancess is russia. secondly i think the biggest competitor is china. but here seeing russia is much more of a peer power. there are these conflicting perceptions and that is one of the goals of the book and how i started this project. it is thinking about, well is russia strong or weak? and how would we know? and here we are in 2021, 30 years after the collapse of the soviet union having this conversation. and as i will explain as the talk goes on, it's a bit surprising to even be having this conversation given the starting point of where russia was in 1991. so is russia a global power now? and most people would probably say no. i'm going to try and convince you otherwise by relying on some

of the data of where russia is around the world. just a quickly view of russia's disruption internationally, really beginning since 2014 and the seizure of cry me a from ukraine -- crimea from ukraine and the low boil war. it is the united states not recognizing crimea but as ukraine. in 2015 a quick and effective mobilization into syria changing facts on the ground in working with iran. 2016 u.s. presidential election interference as well as interference with the brexit

referendum lace. 2017 giving $27 million for marie le pen as she prepares for the french presidency. buzz -lg of warships, continuing up until now by russian plains. in 2018, 2019 the promotion of populism in eastern european beyond. and 2020 the solar winds software hack, where russian hackers working for the russian government appeared to plants code into the software of this very popularly software company and fortune 500 companies. we don't know if it is still there and what they gained exactly yet from that. clearly very disruptive. a few quick faction on russia.

146.7million people. if we don't count crimea it has about 144.5 million people. long-term grabbing countries is not the best strategy for increasing population. until recently russia's population growth was negative due to demographic issues which i'll go into a bit later. it has recovered pre covid at least and you'll see exactly how it comes out of the covid crisis. we've all suffered from the covid crisis, u.s. more than others, although it's not clear. gdp per capita at ppp pair a tee was just over $29,000. the important thing is that's about three times what it was in 1991, and it's roughly now if you want to think about purchasing power parity it looks

more like a greece or spain. the u.s. is just over 56,000 if you can see that. it is an economy of $1.7 trillion, which is roughly similar to canada's just for perspective. here is the u.s. here is china, and germany. so, you know, not the biggest economy obviously ours is much larger as is china's. it's still primarily commodity driven but it's not exactly a gas station with nukes as romney said. in 2020 russia was the world's -- still the worlds' second largest exporter of oil and it changes places with saudi arabia on that. russia has exported about 11.4% of global oil. it also is a huge natural gas exporter, 18% of the world's exports, and nickle also in

large volumes and number two as i said producer of petroleum products behind the u.s. in this case. the u.s. doesn't export our oil but russia and saudz yeah a rabies arthe number one exporters. russians are proud if they look back at the history of famines in the soviet union and when the soviet union collapsed. it has become less dependent on petroleum exports. there has been attempts at verse diversification to a modest effect. it has been a result of declining demand for the products of course. it is the report of some diversification. those are our quick faction. in common comparisons i think people like mitt romney and john mccain are thinking of these sorts of comparisons when they

dismissed russia as not a peer power. here is gdp i put what i said earlier here in chart form so you can see it easily, in trillions of u.s. dollars. in terms -- and russia doesn't -- i'm using the united kingdom as a proxy for europe in yen although they wouldn't want that anymore i realize. in terms of population, also a fraction of china's less than half of ours here in the united states, and even, you know, bigger, though, than the united kingdom. in terms of military spending another common thing we look at, or is commonly trotted out as a proxy for global power and influence in u.s. dollars, 2018 u.s. dollars russia spends about a tenth of what the u.s. does,

about a quarter of what china does and about what the united kingdom spends. as we'll see later russia gets a little more for its money than the united kingdom even though spending in adjusted dollars looks roughly the same. and again just reviewing -- whoops, reviewing some of those measures. so, if russia doesn't by these measures of power if we added these up and arranged the world along these measures, wurb sha would not look particularly influential in the world yet it's done all the things i referred to earlier, particularly since mr. putin returns to the russian presidency in 2012. often it's said that russia under mr. putin eyes punching above its weight, right?

he is some sort of strategic genius, and he uses what little they have to great effect. and my book tries to offer some correctives on how we think about that, whether russia is punching above its weight or a heavy weight in some areas. this forces us to think a little more about state power in international relations how we measure it and define it. one of the arguments is we think about power too narrowly and overlook other capabilities. we need to look beyond the men, military and phaoeugt. might. how much you spend on the military doesn't necessarily translate into global influence and having the world's largest economy would certainly be helpful in global influence but

it alone doesn't seem to reflect relative power, otherwise why would russia with a relatively small economy be as disruptive as it has been? i argue that power is multidimensional, it's relative and contextual. a good hand for example in the game of bridge is a bad one at poker. here i'm use david baldwin's perception of power here. a country's power tools can be good enough to be very disruptive depending on the context and that is one of the main reasons i think we underestimate russian power and influence and its capacity to disrupt global politics. the second corrective i make is the characterization of russia as weak and having nothing is as dated. russia has recovered and maintained some of the capacities that it had, that the soviet union had more than we

appreciate. it has modernized more than we appreciate. it has some new tools of international power that are not that expensive but extremely disruptive. so if we are just counting up the number of soldiers in the military, or the amount of spending in the military, we are missing some of those tools, and in particular those are so-called soft and sharp pow every tools. but even hard power, its military has been reformed as we'll see since 2008. the other thing that enables russia to use what it has, the new tools is its domestic political system and that russia's lack of institutional checks enable president putin to use the power tools that they have quickly and without much accountability at least for now. there is also a very high tolerance for risk and that is quite distinctive of how the

soviet union functioned where there were institutions that could check the general rec of the communist party. there are no institutions that really check mr. putin anymore. one of the underlying arguments too is that there is something specific about putinism and the system that has developed while he has been in power the last 20 years. ok. so, what game is putin playing? there is a common argument among realists in particular saying that this is a great power, doing what great powers do, that is russia has always been a great power. its gee og gravity is essentially destiny, it covers essentially a continent and as a real lis his argument would be the game they are playing is

power maximization for its own sake. its relative size of the country it's endowments determine its winners and losers. if that is true rushu russian behavior should be immutable overtime and across regime type. it shouldn't matter who it is, it's structurally determined. russian foreign policy behaviors. so, by this rec conning russia is doomed to be against the west regardless of who is in power, and but given that we have more of everything, remember that chart i showed you, russia really shouldn't be that much of a threat. it's trying but it's not much of a threat. but it is a significant threat. recall what breed love said about russia trying to rewrite the cold war settlement using force, or saying eyes an

exstepbgs al threat or bide tpheud in terms of our national security it's the biggest threat. so, all of this sort of led me to think as i was thinking about how to think about russia relatively speaking, was to look and see what has been written to power and international politics and spiesing lee it's not that much since the 1950's, not that much new, not that there isn't a lot written about it. the definition that bob do le trotted out in the 1950's is the dominant definition and that's the one i use there the ability of one state to get another state to do something it might not do. i look at power as a traditional one of men, military and money. but i also move to consider context of power too. thinking about as david baldwin

does in some of his work, power over whom to do what. again, a good hand at bridge is a bad one at poker, and you don't bring a knife to a gun fight. right? so we need to also consider context and we need to consider things like geographic domain, where and how many countries does russia actually exercise influence, which i use interchangeably as power -- with power. and we have to think about its policy scope and how weighty an actor it is in that policy area. how much does it matter in what areas. for example, in oil russia is a very weighty actor, and since 80% of global energy still comes from carbon sources, like oil and natural gas, then, you know, russia is weighty in that really important part and policy area. that would differentiate it from

a state like north carolina north korea which has growing means if terms of its nuclear capacity but its policy, scope and weight isn't important beyond the fact that it has the nuclear weapons with and can really effect its neighbors with them and if its activities in that area. so i did this artistic rendering of what i'm talking about in terms of the different dimensions of power. try to imagine that these circles can get bigger or smaller. you could have a lot of means in terms of a strong economy, you know, a healthy society, well educated, a strong military and lots of push and pull influence, which i'll explain, over other countries, but in a really narrow geographic area. and you could have very limited policy scope if it's also only in one policy area, like nuclear

weapons. so these things can independently vary as well. but i look along these different tkphrepbgss. this is in a sense the way the book is organized. so is russia resurrected -- my argument is russia as the geographic domain, policy scope and weight in certain important policy areas, and in many areas the means that are sometimes overlooked. it has enough power beyond means alone, that is that chart i showed you, right, of men, military and money to be disruptive, and sometimes decisive in international policy. so why are, or how has this happened? well, that is the second part of the argument and that looks more at domestic politics. most of my work has been in the -- on russian domestic fox news poll particulars. the argument is that putin has

the will to use what russia has pretty much unconstrained. why is this? because the deployment of the pow every resources abroad is determined by politics in russia at home. when we think about what russia is doing abroad i think sometimes we forget what goes on at home and russia has politics too. does domestic politics drive russian policy as much or more like geography or location. the type of regime matters in determining russian foreign policy decisions and the decline of its power resources. in terms of the outcome for the united states there is something about putinism at home and russia's exercise of its foreign policy tools. what i do in the book is run the counter factual. what if putin wasn't in power, what if the regime was not an

autocrassy and there are historical facts to that. i argued russia at different times if we think back between 1985 and 1991 we have russia actually having good relationships with the west. russia is negotiating in this period under gorbachev. he just turned 90 by the way. he's alive and kicking. there are famous pictures of him walking with reagan and george h.w. bush after, you know, signing arms control agreements, arms reduction agreements in the nuclear area we had not seen before. then in comes yeltsin russia's first popular lee elected president. we have bill clinton and

yeltsin, clinton helping russia join the g8. there were some rough spots in terms of nato expansion but also tremendous improvement also in being able to negotiate automatic of those disagreements. and then even in putin's first two terms between 2000 and 2008 the first one being 2000-2004 an 2004-2008, putin is purportedly the first international leader to call george w. bush in 2000 after 911 to express his condolences on behalf of the russian people for our loss that day. putin by some accounts, was disappointed that he had thought at the time that there would be more coordination in terms of an international terrorism problem, that russia also had this, and

had hoped that he could work together more with the united states. and in fact there were periods of working strongly together. remember that when putin's proteje medvedev from 2008 to 2012 putin was prime minister. and during this time of preset in u.s. russian relationships putin was involved. he approved these things that medvedev cooperated on with the united states. what were these things, first the new start agreement that has just been renewed last month reducing or capping the number of strategic nuclear weapons that the united states and russia can have, and it includes also a very sophisticated verification regime. another thing was the northern distribution network which probably a lot of americans don't appreciate existed, but it

was russia allowing us to send nuclear -- send military equipment through its territory on trains into bases in central asia that we were renting with russian approval at the time, even though those are sovereign states, russia has certain influence over them, and enabling us to stage those weapons in these bases into afghanistan when pakistan was not as reliable a neighbor. and the final thing that medvedev did he abstained on behalf of russia, he gave orders in the u.n. security council over nato's actions in libya to out moammar qaddafi. in comes putin back into the presidency in 2012 and it's that point we see the reset and

relationships with the west change radically, and russian foreign policy become more aggressive. and so, you know, a puzzle is why? why did that happen? and the book touches on this as well. so -- whoops -- didn't mean to do that, got a little trigger happy with my mark here. there is a new geography of russian power. as much as i agreed with barack obama in some areas in calling russia a regional power, that was obviously wrong. and it's certainly wrong today. it was maybe more correct in 2015 when he said it but it's certainly not the case today. now russia does have a geographic domain that it inherited from the soviet union and the soviet union inch herred much of that from the russian empire before it. it is the largest country in the world geographically speaking.

spans moat european asia. it has the highest number of international borders of any other country in the world, that is 14. the only other country actually that does have the same number is china it borders with countries that used to be within the stove viet union or the russian empire. and that i think has helped to perpetuate this idea of a zone of natural influence, historical influence that can be reclaimed. but since 2014 in particular it has built other areas of significant global influence. i think sometimes we underestimate what russia has gained in terms of its global influence and capabilities through its actions in syria. it's not a quagmire for russia, because they don't -- the russian leadership doesn't think the same way about political power and international action

or effectively occupation of a country as we do. there is not as much pressure to fix it now that it's broken. russia has also developed influence there iraq, in iran, as well as stalled saudi arabia. it has new relationships with israel because of the huge russian diasper there. it maintains relationships with its difficult countries, countries that have difficult relationships, pardon me with one another, and so iran and iraq don't get along particularly well. saudi arabia and iran don't get along particularly well but russia deals with all of them. it established relationships with individual countries and leaders who have kindred spirits

or who have populations who may be receptive to a new kind of, i wouldn't call it quite an ideology, but belief, conservative belief, more traditional beliefs. so we can see this in the populous leaders who have emerged. among societies in the middle east, north africa and see this as an alternative to liberalism, for example. one of the important things i think too to recognize is that russia does not use ideology the way the soviet union did. there is much more pragmatism. they do have this sort of emphasis on traditional values and also not pressing things like human rights in their dealings with maybe countries

that would have unsafe reperceptions on the part of the united states or other western powers increasing influence and sharper closer ties in eastern europe with countries like serbia and hungary as the take a turn more towards authoritarianism than towards russia has developed closer and closer ties. friend in the middle east, western europe, russia is a very weighty and important actor in terms of oil supply and in particular natural gas, and so right now we're having a little set-to with germany over the

north stream two pipeline that goes from west 0 st. petersburg into northern germany supplying natural gas. that's a requirement for germany, getting 90 asker of this natural gas from russia, used for heating and electricity and could shut down their economy if you shut down natural gas. so creates a vulnerability. that's our concern. in south moder, russian basically now owns venezuelan oil and it has taken an ownership stake in venezuela national oil company, closer ties to argentina, just doing a very quick tour but in chapter three of the book it's a big are tour. thicker tour. russia's also developed a military presence in the arctic.

it has the largest fleet in the world of ice breakers, including nuclear ice breakeres we don't have or canada doesn't have. two other big presences in the arctic, and this is in part for exploration of new oil and gas resources. in the past american oil companies have partnered with russian oil and gas entities in order to explore that. russia has been able now to replace because they're under series, ukraine and their hacking, from us and from europe and been able to replace western investors not completely but to a large degree with investment from the middle east, including saudi arabia and uae, as well as china. and even india in terms of trying to do more exploration in

the arctic and china is particularly interested in a new northern trade route through the arctic as global warming opens up that as a possibility. so working with russia there. russia'salso been in the last three or four years particularly savvy in terms of develop including markets for its products, which are not just oil and gas but also selling nuclear power facilities for domestic energy purposes, building materials and mining materials. when you go into target and you don't see consumer products, for example, that are stamped made in russia, that's because they don't really make a lot of great or high quality consumer products and tend to focus more on heavy industry. but they've been relatively savvy in terms of forgiving

loans in countries in sub saharan africa and this loans were probably bad knee and instead have received russian companies have received contracts for supplying material in so in this way, again, finding new markets, getting around western sanctions, while at the same time sometimes providing loans to these places or as i said doing business, it's an alternative and there's some stuff in the book to at the wrest russia is willing to do business without a lot of strings attached so they're not going to come down hard on human rights abuses in central african republic. they'll go in and use mercenaries, provide a rough settlement to a civil war and take the diamonds and the same is true with precious metal. in terms of russia and china

there's some juicy stuff in there it's so interesting. russian-china relations. russia complies china with oil, china get its it from other places places and hat has its own domestic oil industry but provide infrastructure products to help china with its own oil and gas infrastructures as wells a supplying china with military equipment. that comes with long chains of servicing, and it's hard to just get rid of a jet. you need someone to help you with it as well as cooperating with china in military exercises which have been largely russian-led and russian dominate. the chinese not taking a huge role in that. so you can't be overstated. quickly russia has also developed close ties with india. this is somewhat of a legacy of

the soviet period and also a result of russia looking at india, seeing a huge market there that is an alternative to we were markets that -- where russia is under sanction since 2014 and cooperate on pharmaceuticals to sputnik v, v for victory, the russia covid vaccine is being manufactured in india, some of it, and india just register it and it will go into arm inside india as well. would take -- if it is perfectly reliable. i think russian's leadership undermined perceptions of its reliability because they didn't -- weren't completely forthcoming when the first came up with it in terms of data but over time we have seen it is -- appears to gentlemen just as

efficacious. and is actually part of russia's vaccine diplomacy now, soft power -- use of soft power around the world. it's registered its vaccine sputnik v in about 48 countries as of today. all right. so, in terms geography, russia has greatly expanded its spheres of influence inch terms of the policy scope and weight, in those policy areas, that is it importance is a mentioned earlier, it's increased in changed that significantly since the collapse of the soviet union. it's primarily based on economic interests and geoeconomic calculations but there's really three main areas of policy that russia is interested in

globally. so first obviously oil and gas, and energy more generally but it isn't just the actual physical products of oil and gas where russia is an important actor globally. it's in -- it's pipeline and infrastructure, transportation infrastructure control, in particular so one over the things what russia has gained out of the syrian conflict is control over pipelines in northern syria and increased support of pipeline infrastructure development in northern iraq as well, where we shed our own blood and tears and money. in terms of noncarbon trade, russia is the world's second largest purveyor of weaponry. we're number one. but also nuclear energy technology for domestic purposes. it has become increasingly competent in terms of agriculture and one reason we should sort of focus on that.

you know russian geography it's hard to grow thing inside most part ofs of the done but the fact is now exports wheat, given historically how difficult it was even to feed their own people in the soviet period and ann another time inside imperial period is notable accomplishment. there was a really interesting article in the "new york times" magazine a couple of months ago how russia will gain actually from climate change and one is increasing its airable lan and being able to grow more and more things. and then finally the third main area of policy is national security. protecting its borders, its sovereignty and moving into the arctic and it is the predominant power now in the arctic. so, those are chapters two and three. chapter one sprouse shri introduction and overview of the book. chapter four, five, six, and seven, all look at the means of

russian power and those are the more traditional measures, first of all, looking at the economy as kind of unsteady base of russian global influence. lookinging a society, a relative strength or weakness and sustaining global influence, comparing military power and inn particular the book provides an overview of russia's new look mill material reform that was begun initially in 2008 and has -- as well as providing direct comparisons to china in and the united states and europe in that chapter on military power and capabilities. the conclusion there is that russia is the most powerful in terms of military power hands down in europe, and is -- by many measures, a peer power with the united states especially nuclear power -- nuclear

weaponry, and then chapter seven looks at soft and so-called sharp power, which hopefully i'll have time to get into. that is the power of attraction to the russian perspective, and then sharp power, the ability to use cyber and media means to disrupt an information environment in military speak. so, how things started -- i think this he one thing when we think about -- that quote that putin gave us back in 2002 rich is never as week as thought and never as strong as it wants to be my church hill. it was pretty weak effort to the class of the soviet union so looking at the economy, the call it was complete collapse of the political structure and of the economic structure, that planning system, that had developed from the mid-1920s

onward, fell apart the economy goes into extreme shortage and then hyperinflation, and is dependent on loans from international monetary fund and even in the early 1990s. receiving food aid. actually -- i'm not proud of this, but i was the beneficiary of usaid food aid on the street in moscow because it had made its way on to the black market and i kept some frozen chicken, paid for with the american taxpayers with the price jacked up on city streets of moscow bit i was terrible economic catastrophe and it has been called by others as one of the worth economic catastrophe outside of wartime in history except now i think for venezuela. we could say.

so, really at the bottom of the barrel. a recipient of loans from lenders of last resort. unemployment something new for a post-soviet citizens who never faced it before. in terms of gross domestic product comparing brazil, russia, india, china, and south africa, often included, with the eu28, and the united states in this time period, the first 25 years or so, you can kind of see where russia fits in in terms of its gdp. here it is. comparatively speaking. hires china, look at the takeoff there. here's the european union, 28 so this includes britain and -- here's -- yes issue think i said this is russia. this is india, of course, and this is the united states.

so russia is here. so you can see it's increasing. but it's traveling along with brazil. and it is not the rocket ship that china is in this period. that's just gdp. that not per capita or per person. here it is per capita and if we look at that it's not as bad looking. it actually does a lot -- it's here in the middle brown here so again we have the united states up here, this is purchasing power parity so if you bought the same balances set of goods in -- basket of goods in one country versus the other what while feel like relative to your income. so you can see that russia's actually doing reasonably well here in that sense, per capita at purchasing power parity. here's china. per capita. it has a big are population. at purchasing power aparty.

russia eight richer country than china some that is sometimes underappreciate. people look at the gross chinese economy and not the compare staff standard of living. obviously improving in china bus here's the european union and here's the united states. so there's ban recent declosed reliance in russia on carbonned based energy exports. part is there's a drop in prices so they're not -- but even if you control for that, this is the percent of total experts so even if you control for that you can see that there's still less revenue coming in. there's a separation of gross domestic product and global crude oil prices in russia. heat happen around 2014 partly -- there's, there's a again the global oil prices here, partly money that goes into a hold up the ruble.

so there's a decoupling. why? here again this is just a snapshot. and want to be careful not to oversight this about the structure of exports in 2013 that year and 2017, so here oil prices have recovered, and about the same, has changed. 70% are carbon and energy based exports and here is 59% so it's dropped. what has come up are metal, the metal products, a little bit -- has increased in terms of machinery and equipment. this would reflect the russian activities in the middle east picking up new contracts, chemicals and rubbers, pharmaceuticals and even food and agriculture has doubled. so we're seeing some incremental changes in diversification. that said the book goes into

detail hoss russia is underspending in terms of research and development, but -- and education more generally and having high quality education as opposed to just the highest number in the world of engineers. what are those engineers trained to do? in terms of society the book goes into another chapter, life expectancy, which is pretty low, male life expectton say sis worrisome and the gap between female and male life expectancy is worrisome but that's hat gotten better over time. so, russians are now wealthier, than they've every been, living longer than they've ever been, and now this is precovid and we're never -- hopetive the end but we don't know -- where we'll be with covid. so as unhealthy also they irrelative to others they're

getting better and better relative to where they've been. the health-care system is improving but it's not perfect yet. it is leading causes of death are preventible diseases, cashedow vascular disease. the problemes people die younger. that's a cause of death in the united states but their some competency in the russian government. there's tremendous corruption which the books talks about and some competency in certain policy areas and one has been actually enn getting people to drink less. i know what you're thinking. so, russians drink still more liters of vodka than the rest of europe but it's closer in terms of that amount. russians are also hey the heaviest smokers in the world per kappa but they've also attacked that. they were the heaviest smokers and that has come down. so, it's not as though the russian state doesn't know this,

and putin understands this to be important that its longevity life expect san si because it's an economic issue. people are dying in the prime of life, and where labor productivity should be highest and you want to bring that down. but population is relatively highly educated. right? and particularly in technical skills, but one issue is whether or not those skills actually match what the market needs, and so this is something they'll have to work on. it's only 30 years since -- from the complete collapse of the economy in the massive shift for society from a planned system to a form of market system. corruption obviously is a tremendous problem and i talk about that in the book as well. russian society on the one hand has strengths as this slide

shows but on the other hand it has these issues, not the least of which is a brain dane that is highly educated russians seeming to leave. some have called evident the putin exodus, and -- but population growth is at least now flat, hovering around flat to slightly negative but not where it was in the 90s. one ongoing problem we can talk about more in questions is young people indicating they want to leave and of course young people being on the streets protesting putin most recently over navalny but even before that as well. this is just where russia stands relative to others and you can see it was in the 1990s we get a big dip in life expectancy at birth and then goes up. still behind the european union, the united states, even brazil in this area. mortality rates are pretty -- this is the death rate.

that's problematic for russia. it's getting better. but that is this is getting flatter and closer to other countries. here's germany, for example, but still problematic in terms of maintaining demographics. that would be positive to the economy. one big challenge societialie is equality and economy has gotten increasingly unequal in terms of income distribution, which is what this shows and perhaps more problematically, wealth distribution. you can see the top 1% of the population owning almost 45% or having almost 45% of the wealth. here's the bottom 50% of the population having just below 5% of the wealth. that's very problematic. one reason you see people coming

out on the streets. some of this is corruption, of course. maybe even a lot of it. and the crony capitalism had has grown up under putin. the book also then goes into -- i don't want to talk too much longer -- goes into comparisons of russian hard or military power, soft power, and sharp means of power, and just quick eye lights here. russia has a huge nuclear arsenal, the only country in the world that can deliver an ballistic missile to the united states in 30 minutes. the military form new look has largely been completed. it's ended the russian military's reliance on conscription. still some conscripts but smaller number this because of the modernization of equipment that has also occurred.

you need a sell certain level of accumulated knowledge in order to work that equipment and so it's not practical anymore to have a primarily conscript army as a result. the spending that russia does on its military, purchasing power parity put is it in the top three global limit it -- russia spends what britain spends in terms of dollar to dollar terms on its military, but russia produces everything inside and it is paying rubles so once you change to purchasing power parity you can explain why russia has been able to fund a huge military reform whereas the u.k. has not, yet they seem to spend the same in budget -- dollar terms. doubtedly the united states is still the biggest military in the world with the most capability in terms of conventional force but russia

has become without a doubt the most capable military in europe, period. no questions. russia soft power. russia is raising friendship in other countries. russia wages friendship. soft power is supposed to be a passive thing, right? so think american movies and showing our lifestyle. that is a passive power of attraction to the united states. and to the freedom and political preferences and al views we're supposed to represent. the nature of what i is is don't control soft power. don't have a soft power policy in the rendering but put president's russia has a soft

power policy. it is an active policy, an active force, and one of their policy documented it's described as a set of instruments and methods used to achieve foreign policy goals without using the military. but instead changing the information environment and, quote other, instruments of influence. it's a culture power of attraction but to russian policymakers it's intentional and instrumental. so some thats you anyway not know about it has established cultural centers for teaching russian language in europe. it makes grants to civil society organizations. it funds foreign students at russian universities. this the soviet union did. but it funds the conference which is run by the presidential administration. that is to basically explain russian policy positions or explain russia to experts. so i've attended that. probably some the audience have

as well. it has established institutes on democracy and cooperation. one of which still exists in paris. the one that existed in new york monitored american democracy, and it has theirs public support fund that again funds nongovernment organizations and of course things like the hosting over the sochi olympic and the world cup show russia to the world as a modern country that transform itself. that's a kind of more traditional kind of soft power. it has reached out to russian diaspora communities in the community, israel in particular has large russian diaspora. putin paid pensions to those russian -- former russian or soviet citizens who fought in the second world war and paid in israel. it's been a tremendous -- gave them tremendous boost. he is the only russian leader to have visit all kinds of places and one of those is israel. the is saudi arabia.

this social conservatism is attract tonight to some sites and leaderses in contrast to the overly permissive west and they employed an array of tools of good will, including aid and emergency service in italy, sending covid masks and want when the europeans were not sharing these things last year. n a big from russia and now they're undertaking vaccines diplomacy globally. sharp power -- i'm look at the en -- using a jab or four-get countries to do what thy might not otherwise. do it's not my term. it's used by among others walker and ludwig. where soft power is power of attraction, sharp power pushes and changes information sources to a favorable view of russian you look at the cyberattacks of

power, such asinine and affecting europe as a result. denial of service attacks in the estonia but elsewhere, too thought control used on social media to promote or blunt certain messages, again, changing the information environment. ... ironically its slogan is questioned more, that is quite

don't question anything inside of russia that you can watch this and not even realize it's a part of the russian government. russia is the little brother to broadcast in english and other languages and has an active web site. it has given examples of words leaning into the united states and it has been very pro-trump when he was president without of course people who are listening realize this is not just a regular radio program. it's the russian government. >> finally why did russia do all of this? the purposes are structural wars. there some aspect of that. every country wants to protect its borders and sovereignty and it needs to sell things weak arms and chemicals that there's

this interesting -- would any russian leader behaved this as when what's the purpose of my argument in the book is that there's some things pacific about putinism and this system that requires russia expand not because of ideology and the soviet union but to support the system itself and maintain the status quo maintained stability and maintain society and we have to quote this. it's a crony of stick system that is close to childhood friend and colleague that he worked with when he was an officer that have benefited the most soot uncanny homage money you can make if you are friend or an old friend as vladimir putin was. his popularity is a political resource and he cares about it a lot. if he gets control over the network and money may go to the

kinds of politics navalny showed in his documentary he would be arrested so social mobilization against inequality has to be avoided at all costs. russia can develop gas that it has to be as putin says evolutionary not revolutionary and so you have to keep society down seat can basically privatize anything available for controlling the state that would make the cost of that public. so russia under siege narrative rushes the great power is narrative coming out of russia helped keep that resource of popular high and this might explain why novell me -- but also russian aggressiveness

abroad helps maintain the regime stability. so the model is such that society not nato is the biggest threat to putin's regime and the longevity of survival as a global power will be determined by society. again why go after someone like navalny with such seriousness and why be so aggressive in pushing back against protests? the state is in service and they both want to enrich themselves while promoting individual interests and they are intertwined in russia. again society is the biggest threat. this makes the point why worry about navalny and constitutional changes through a pandemic. >> does russia have a grand

strategy and if it does this is what it is but the question is it a russian grand strategy or is it a strategy in foreign-policy that is a particular regime in maintaining this regime as opposed to being in the interest of any other political actor? >> i talk in the book about whether a different leader would be different and i think the answer is yes. if you aren't stuck in this it is not inevitable that russia is against the west. it has historically not always been and it is i think particular to putin so i'm going to stop with that slide and end with a big apology for going on so long. i can't see you. zoom is my cue on that but i love talking about russia.

c thank you so much kathryn for that interesting really fascinating insight and information and i want to thank you for all of it and of course there are lots of questions that have come in. i want to remind everyone make sure you are posing your questions in the q&a slot not the chat spot because i'm looking at the q&a and not the text so used that one for your questions to show up. i'm going to resist pearce to take advantage of the host prerogative. i have a question i'm dying to ask them let a few other questions get in there first because i recognize that absolute power power sometimes corrupt senator lamont to be corrupted and not wait.

actually kathryn can you on share your screen so we have a better look at how i'll tell behind you so if you can unmute yourself as well. that would be great. >> thanks so much. her first question that i'm going to post in the q&a comes from jerry hudson who has read "russia resurrected" and is urging all of us, the rest of us who would not read it and i've read half of the night i agree that it is extremely enjoyable and i second his recommendation but jerry's question as he says there's a link between regime types and foreign-policy. he says he contends the more repressive the regime the more assertive the foreign-policy and using the evolution of good news

policy to illustrate this proposition. assuming his understanding is correct do you think this relationship holds generally when compared to soviet history and the other nations that all have repressive regimes? >> so i don't know if that's 100% all of the time in all countries but i think under certain conditions it's true and overtime with the soviets, the soviet history alludes to that as well. we have 70 years there but only 30 with russia post-soviet history so you could make an argument since world war i but that was probably what he was doing too but i'm not an historian so i'm not going to

get in to your lane there. but yes you have the argument on that point. in terms of other countries with repressive systems i think when things are not going well at home first of all all a talk or see his has to have a degree of legitimacy or at least seem that way because you can't fool everyone. and look what's happening in myanmar right now. so some of them will turn outwards for a narrative that shows them to be defending even though we are being repressed they can defend the nation against this outside problem. and so i think that's essentially the argument we are

making is that putin has to show himself in order to maintain his domestic legal stability to be you know, russia is under siege. we can't have this kind of instability and we don't want what's happening next door in ukraine to happen here and that's the most important thing. >> moving from russia turning outward pushing back our next question comes from dan who asked how much of russian ascension as he calls it is due to bear working to improve their own position and how much comes as a result of the lack of push back from others? >> that's a good question and as putin embarked upon this i'm

saying putin but i have colleagues at stanford who say there is no mr. putin but as the regime has embarked on what i see as a policy change in 2013 and 14 we are seeing under obama this leading from behind policy, write and then it only gets worse with america first as we begin to withdraw even more internationally. and so we made it easy certainly for them to pursue this sort of policy by withdrawing absolutely. >> i'm sorry i'm trying to read the questions as they are pouring in. i'm going to group two questions together because they both are addressing -- they both relate to your points on russian hard

power and how much of a threat russia actually does pose. the first of these two questions comes from john mueller who asks do you think russia present what you call a significant threat to u.s. security? do you agree it's capable of calling for the u.s. to cease to exist and i'm going to add to that job sectors question which deals with russian work, aggressive work as he calls it on new nuclear weapons and the way that would disrupt the power balance globally and john's questions specifically in u.s. security. >> yeah so okay this is a question -- is russia an existential threat? the yeah but remember we are next to dead shall threat to them too.

mutual destruction was the doctrine that have kept us both save frankly in deterrence. that is certainly in place. the problem is and the book goes into this with russia and hopefully it's just bluffing but putin can develop a tendency to talk rather admiringly a russian nuclear capability and this isn't just now they have used their nuclear weapons in protecting their sovereignty so is fundamentally important to their survival but seemingly by some interpretations of the last four or five years all through their dr. and they seemingly make it okay to use nuclear weapons either short-range or long-range end of quote in the

book is according to the security doctrine if the integrity of the fatherland is invaded. so what does that name? to zap him mean if we are nato that has tried to help ukraine get crimea back with russia than use a nuclear weapon to stop that? we don't know. probably not but they have also developed some weapons and one of the questions you alluded to was the poseidon torpedo which allegedly it actually worked and we don't no, it would cause a tsunami of 1500 kilometers inland once it pushed ashore of its target nation. so that's pretty dramatic for the east coast of the united states. you'd probably be okay in ohio

but i wouldn't be okay here. so that is all very worrisome and this is why we have joe biden saying in terms of her national security russia is the biggest threat in terms of being a competitor maybe it's china that yeah so the other thing i may have ended with is the time horizon. putin's regime times things differently so they probably in policy not thinking past five, 10 or 15 years and i think this is important in terms of how we use rss their ability or desire to take risks and it seems as though they are much more tolerant than the soviet union. >> ben asks if putin is more interested in evolutionary

expansion and domestic stability is the united states from to be so concerned about russia as a hard power conventional military threat? the >> i said evolutionary development, not expansion. that's an important difference because evolutionary economic development which would if you believe the modernization. which is the kind of thing he has in his head it would mean that you get a middle-class out on the street and that's what he doesn't want. in terms of local influence or disruption they have no album with that and that's think we have seen pretty good evidence of that and it said institutionalized political system that doesn't stop him and

he doesn't have a parliament that says you can't do that. only we can declare war. that's not how what happened the night of states. i'm not an advocate of dictatorship which is essentially where we are going here in russia but in the long run and we don't know how long that is but in the long run it's an unstable way to govern especially with the country like that with the bolshevik revolution but in the short-run it's allows them to do these things and take huge risks. >> moving away for probably not the rest of our time but sure period two questions apart -- about hard power and security threats to a question from brian pollin who asks you to comment

on the development of, hooton's feldman at ties to err to gone -- erdogan in turkey and in the context of turkey a part of nato. my commentary had russia and india and russia and china and you did not have turkey on your list. >> i was selective. is that the question you are dying to ask? >> that is not the question i was dying to ask. >> right turkey is kind of the enemy friend i may have russia historically an affront to me currently. has that little awkward issue of shooting down a russian jet of course i think in 2016 and there were sanctions against turkey and then they made up after the coup attempt against erdogan and

putin backed erdogan so why? the think it has a lot to do with syria but also has a lot to do with the pipeline going through turkey and supplying oil and natural gas in europe so this has been a way to get around ukraine and taken a leverage the ukrainian government has over russia by circumventing ukraine as a path for oil and gas in europe. so it's important to russia for that and turkey is important to russia because as someone mentioned in the questions is a member of nato, so far. it locked anti-ant -- anti-ballistic missiles from

russia and when you buy a system like that you are buying maintenance and that will go years and decades into the future. this is problematic to coast the russians are doing it in a nato country. what else are they gaining access to so turkey has been brought into a program to develop chats with nato and the united states as a result. we can call it that but the friend may relationship with russia is stabilized. >> like any good friend amy -- ben trotter is asking, he would like to know if the composition to putin's claim differs in terms of foreign-policy goals or methods?

the. >> well there is organized opposition pointblank. putin thought it was a great idea. one of those guys is named gorbachev and the others named navalny so you know there's that. in terms of opposition that has existed in the past there are people who are opposed to russia having gone into syria as opposed to focusing on infrastructure at home or research and development. those people don't win elections in russia and the fact the surprising thing is that they take place and not that they won but it takes more and more effort on the part of the regime

and this is why navalny is such a threat. they use the smart voter to get everyone to vote across russia and somewhat successfully but not very to be honest. the amount of attention that the regime has given him and the other thing the biggest concern that resonates with so many people and is a threat to the regime is pounding on corruption again and again. able do it every day here -- there so showing it to our video of the power built bike to ignore his cronies i think that's the issue. >> at think we have time for one more question. i apologize for all of those whose questions won't get asked. there are so many questions here but allison goldman has asked

howl and the west and more specifically the united states breaks down against the west attitude and how can we approach it in terms of diplomacy? >> i've got some ideas here. one of the things that was quite successful in the 2008 and 12 period was opening up more person-to-person exchanges. i don't think the current regime in russia is going to want to do that because it is not an official capacity but if it is true in terms of what surveys are indicating that a tinted 24 of them russia, 52% of them in the fall of 2019 indicated they intended to emigrate, to leave. that's a super bad sign for the longevity of putin's system domestically. if your young people want to go and where is your theater of the country collects so may get

easier for them to come to the nights are to western europe and make it easier to emigrate or look at the creativity that russian emigrate have brought in the past things like google. that family stays there and we have cool. russia doesn't have google, we do. so why not make that an immigration policy and capture those folks who want to come here and if they go back to russia, fine. they will go back with understandings about how the u.s. system functions when it does function and new ideas that they may not be exposed to in russia. long-term that's good for us and that's good for them to so that's one of many many things we can do but i think making it easy to have a work visa to come here and also to go to germany

even for an apprenticeship. there's a whole and if i can finish on this but one of the big threats to the regime and why it's so worrisome with navalny with particularly young people out on the streets they are older folks too but there are a lot of young people who have been quite passive until the 2016-17 areas by? the air by? the are frustrated because they can't get into university because they don't have the right connections not that doesn't happen here but there's no transparency and there's nothing they can do about it. and this is problematic for putin. they don't know any other leader and increasingly if they don't see an opportunity in their own country why don't they have these choices and why don't they make it easier to gain access to the rest of the world so that is worrisome and problematic and it's a generational change. >> thank you.

>> that happens to me all the time. thank you so much kathryn seriously for all of your insights. i wish we could have gone through all of the questions that remained in the q&a but on behalf of everyone and we have more than 100 people at one point i would like to thank you for this wonderful talk. i'm sure they are scouring over however they buy their books. and an alert to everybody there a lots of events coming up some which are organized by the american foreign and military research. her next event is a discussion with dr. cynthia beer at on lgbt rights abroad on march 25 at

4:00 p.m. a wonderful conference cosponsored along with the study center supporting this conference on april 14. divided america, divided korea qs korea relations during and after the trump years and more after that but after 5:00 p.m. so i will wrap things up. again kathryn stoner thank you so much for sharing your thoughts with us and your insights on "russia resurrected."

book tv continues on c-span2, television for serious readers. >> nicole perlroth has covered russian hacks of nuclear power plants airports and elections north korean cyberattacks against movie theaters banks and hospitals and hundreds of chinese cyberattacks including a month-long attack. her new book "this is how they tell me the world ends" was praised and no matter how strong the state is there will be someone who can come along and