that means you can jump in anytime you want stephen cohen if i go to you first in new york when you hear the term new cold war because it's part of your title of your most recent book what does it mean to you and what should it mean to our viewers what would be the i don't know whether we're in a new cold war or a continuation of the old cold war and it doesn't really matter whether we call it a cold war or not but the conflicts the dangers the issues the confrontations that characterize the forty year cold war between the united states and russia and russia in the west are back and in some ways it's different and in some ways it's even more dangerous just to bring this right into this week's new this new cold war may now be drawing the dividing line which was in berlin right on russia's borders in ukraine but this is a process that's been going on since the end of the soviet union nearly twenty two years now eric in new york how do you reflect upon that because i want to talk about ukraine a little bit later in the program but if you read western media right now i mean

it's gotten to the point of steria absolute hysteria the the economist the washington post never friends of russia but in this week alone this is getting to the point of going to proportions that i've never ever seen even during the cold war i would say. well i think that the timing is instructive of course the sochi games the the triumphal sort of per session for russia on the world stage is they're attempting to undermine that of course as we all know the olympics is not merely an athletic event it's not merely a two week extravaganza it's also a corporate event it is an attempt for any country in this case russia to sort of parade itself on the world stage as being a haven for investment as having made tremendous strides in terms of infrastructure as having moved forward economically socially politically so part of the propaganda i think that word that you're alluding to in the western media is an attempt to

deal with them eyes that as much as possible of course the edward snowden issue and many others are kind of lurking in the background of all of this using the various political issues political conflicts as sort of a pretext for launching into the vehement russia bashing which i think to a large degree we've grown accustomed to and you know ukraine is also very important in all of this but i think it's also very significant that we recognize that unlike in the in the sort of technical cold cold war of the post world war two period we have a tremendous amount of economic cooperation between russia and the west of course primarily we're thinking of mutually beneficial economic arrangements between gazprom or us nafta and western oil companies whether in the arctic or elsewhere we see a tremendous amount of money and resources poured into bilateral arrangements between russia and various countries such as turkey and others which are traditionally in the sort of western nato sphere of influence so although we do see

a freezing of these relations it is something that is much more nuanced than simply a cold war it's interesting markets not to undermine russia per se but to the political order that is here today this is what it's really all about is to undermine the popular leader and his name is vladimir putin if you want. he's popular here well he's been he's been made into the bogeyman certainly but i think if we go back what stephen cohen saying that process of that if the retreat to moscow which has been gone since the end of the cold war since the last period is something which the worst wishes to push through and if we think about the classic cold war we can see i think continuity but differences in the cold war period we had the argument that the soviet union was a one party dictatorship but it also was a socialist society fundamentally different from the capitalist states in the us alive the argument was that you couldn't really have political freedom unless you had economic freedom now of course russia in some ways is a more capitalist society than many of the west european countries that join the

united states to criticize it it has a flat tax and so on so we've seen that a core propaganda or ideological argument has disappeared and yet the russophobia the anti russian mood which was also an underpinning of the cold war has become if anything stronger and i think it away therefore if we think about the cold war we can see for british for instance britain had been an imperial rival of imperial russia and its all the soviet union a simply the tzarist empire with a red flag on top of it and the desire of the western states to to push back russian posed by strong one hundred years ago the british went to war with germany but their foreign office was saying in the one hundred twenty s. of course russia will be the main enemy they didn't anticipate the revolution but they expected the defeat of germany would bring russian towards central europe that happened of course under the guise of the red army and so on in one thousand nine hundred five and today we're seeing if you like a revival of an essentially nash anti russian mood and would play there for upon the nationalisms of neighboring states the baltic states the poles the ukrainians

and so on and rather as i'm afraid say in the second world war the germans eventually tried to recruit anti communists anti russian cults and koreans to fight for them we in a sense are now reviving those ghosts of collaboration of seventy years ago and i think this is a rather rancid and distasteful policy but also. so well that's dangerous for the go. as well as a threat to creating a kind of civil conflict within places like ukraine between the pro and anti russians between the great you were great you are pins if you like to ration it's ok stephen it's russia a threat to the west because the west certainly portrays russia is some kind of threat. i would put it differently or i would say that the west has become a threat to itself. this constant confrontation with russia which began in the one nine hundred ninety s. with the end of the soviet union the kind of march toward moscow from the west

beginning with nato expansion carrying on with the attempt to establish an american military outpost in the former soviet republic of georgia the building of missile defense installations along russia's borders and now the confrontation in ukraine. in my perspective that is not only highly provocative highly provocative but it is closing down opportunities that we have with russia to solve major problems affecting our own national security in syria and iran and afghanistan and the struggle against international terrorism the problem today is whether we call it a cold war or not as i said at the beginning is that in some ways it's more dangerous one reason is there is no discussion of this issue in the united states on network radio or television during the cold war we had a debate about that in this country what should we do about it should we seek

detente increasing cooperation or should we seek more quote more cold war today it's one hand clapping in the media and in washington so what we say today on your show peter if it's heard in the united states will be dismissed as russian propaganda no and even though i'm a patriotic american because it's coming on a russian television network the problem is how do you get this conversation underway in the united states so that we can bring those politicians in washington who once were against cold war against this new reckless set of american and european policies that's the real problem today as of events that unfold move closer and closer more dangerously recklessly i would say toward russia itself you know eric it seems like it's a bad habit that has to be broken because i would i would say it's a continuation of the old original cold war. you know i think that it could be seen that way as well but i would add i would agree with everything that mr cohen said

but i would add another point here that there are very real material and economic reasons for launching this continued this continued russophobia in popular culture i think one of the main reasons is russian dominance of the european gas market i think that north stream in the south stream pipe. blind have been seen as a tremendous threat by many corporations in the west in the western ruling class more broadly because they understand that it is a way for russia to cement itself as a vital part of the european economic future so for that reason alone they have done what they can to undermine that of course we see various machinations with regard to pipeline development in the caspian region as a means of kind of undercutting russian dominance of course the demonisation of russia's relationship with the roots and the ukrainian government as well because they both are vital to the russian gas delivery infrastructure i think that syria is very much a part of this same issue as well related not only to the prospective pipeline

going to europe but also to the traditional russian sphere of influence and russia's final remaining ally in the middle east and of course the russian base and i think that there are a lot of very practical political and geo political and strategic reasons for why you see this ramping up of this russophobia of the putin bashing the cold war rhetoric whatever you want to call it and if you see it in that way it only begins to make sense and of course obama and the obama administration which came into office under the guise of very going to make it a mark here real quick before the break i'm going to let me go to london here but it doesn't work does it mark ok because russia continues down its path this is what i find really interesting you know for a decade russia is going to collapse but you know it's doesn't happen. now you see one of the fundamental psychological changes in second place is i used to in the 1980's before soldier of the cold war bring money and fax machines and computer

bits and pieces to disadvantage and you never met in the soviet block somebody who was anti western anti american but today the disillusionment with the new world order the disillusionment with the economic and social catastrophe is very many of these countries so great remember we're told poland as a model. but after four million poles have fled the country to work in the west in the cold war the berlin wall was there to keep them in and we were told what kind of system is it that if you took away walls people would flee in vast numbers well they do still and so we have this fundamental right gentlemen i have to jump in here we go to a short break and we'll continue our discussion on whether there is a new cold war.

her. plentiful supply was terrible they weren't very hard to make i don't plan to get along here a plumber has never had sex with that her risk their lives let's play. lists lists legislate . lists plymouth.

the united states. significant technological over the rest of it is now using that to spy on the rest of the world then there was the deal between the u.s. and england where u.s. spy agencies couldn't spy on people in the u.s. but british a spy agencies could spy on people in the u.s. so the two governments each of us will spy on the other's citizens and then we'll trade and that way we'll be sure veiling our own people so this is what i think of as the scandal. the interview.

a feel good.

welcome back to crossfire all things considered i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing whether there is a new cold war. steven i think like you in new york this week here timothy snyder wrote in the walls walls washington post don't let putin grab ukraine. made a mention of that to my producer i did read that it's a truly disturbing article in the washington post would you explain why you thought it was as well. well let me correct you it wasn't in the washington post it was in the international herald tribune to both he was in both he was in both. yes well that's quite remarkable in itself i mean i mean bear in mind that snyder is an

eminent professor of history at yale and we may see this kind of reckless inflammatory unfactual writing in newspapers and in magazines but for a professor to say that shows you just how deep is the new cold war because what snyder is saying or warning against is the possibility that after the olympics when the world's gaze is overt it from russia putin may carry out a military takeover of ukraine. and that the west there has to have therefore has to be ready he's talking about war actual war not cold war but hot war for this allegation he has absolutely no facts whatsoever and yet it's published it is in an imminent place and because he's

a yale professor presumably many readers take it seriously and that is exceedingly dangerous and how do you like doing as i read that article and i found it was inflammatory to the extreme i mean this is there's no evidence to support any contention that russia would do anything to harm ukraine at all as a matter of fact it's loaded a lot of money to get through a rough patch. i think it also we should add that it plays on certain ignorance in the west in the united states particularly about what ukraine is ukraine is a divided country i mean we have a tremendous proportion of the population that identifies very closely with russians that they have family in russia that they are for you know that they consider themselves if not russians but certainly very close of course the west in the eastern is decidedly different but even in the in the so-called anti russian west you have a divided population but the idea at least in the public consciousness in the united states is that russia is an imperial power that russia wants to take over

the ukraine and reestablish an reconstitute the soviet union which is of course an absurdity ukraine and russia are economic partners ukraine is integral to the russian energy delivery infrastructure and conversely ukrainian industry is very much dependent upon russian energy and russian investment so all of these nuances to that relationship are of course completely ignored solely for the purposes of making putin into the bad guy the russians into the big bad former soviet union and making it the responsibility of the west to swoop in on their you know the proverbial white horse and save the ukrainians not have you reflected on what's going on in your head steve go ahead please do. what eric says is completely true but then it poses a question everybody has known for decades that ukraine is at least two different countries one leaning toward the west poland in the way one toward russia it's been

a ticking political time bomb for decades the question is who provoked this current political civil war in ukraine which may be the most fateful international development under way the blame has been placed in the west on ukrainian president young recruits and putin but the reality is this was triggered when the european union issued an ultimatum to the democratically elected president of ukraine whether we like him or not you got a cold which they had to choose between russia and the west why did he have to choose that best moment putin said whether you like him or not look why force ukraine to choose for all the reasons that erick just mentioned ukraine is a divided country let's have a tripartite relationship russia was help ukraine economically the european union will help ukraine economically but the european union rejected that it told ukraine

you must choose between east and west and we used to call that cold war ok mark how do you reflect upon the events going on in ukraine week go ahead jump in. you see i think we've got to see that russia has been thinking about these things economically as well as culturally and the europeans the americans think about them geopolitically yes russia has offered economic aid which would cut the price of gas and energy too would require names the european union today versus at the been a bucket wheel giving tens of millions some civilians to buy the political class russians to put the fifteen billion to subsidize the society the problem is the political class so significant part of it decides the fate of a country and so we know we've done this in. countries too we've found it's easier and cheaper to buy a class of political leaders media people rather than to subsidize the population hence we've seen since the collapse of communism goodling economic conditions mass

migration to the west and for instance i do myself think the west wants to divide ukraine because we don't want the western ukraine which is bum can country poverty stricken peasants we want the climate we want the coast we want years to teach a couple of the russian navy and so the peaceful way out of this crisis might be to say well the people in the western ukraine seem to be fantasizing about becoming part of europe even though the people in eastern poland could tell them it's not a way to go and the people in the east and south seem to be more happy with russia why not say that the country's artificial it doesn't really exist and function as a single society one nation but the west doesn't want that because we want to get closer to the juggler of russian military because as we've been saying essentially we would see the retreat to moscow and i fear of. britain in one thousand nine hundred two no empire retreats forever he said that about britain argentina i fear that we could stumble into a crisis with russia because we have got used to the idea that ultimately the russians blink what if they don't well i'll tell you eric the russians don't blink

as much as you think ok and i live here and i'll tell you a lot of people of had enough of this nonsense being played out in the streets of care being egged on by the european union it's quite disgusting to say the least i agree with mark we could see a hope overly nothing military but it will become more of a confrontation of words that's for sure go ahead eric in new york jump in. why would i would agree with that but i would also add that the military angle is an important one look we have a historical precedent if you see what the united states and the nato powers did in the balkans in the late ninety's and in the early part of the previous decade you begin to see that there is a sort of a strategy here whether or not they want to make the west of. ukraine into a a grand scale kosovo may be somewhat of a an oversimplification but certainly making it into essentially a de facto nato protectorate as they did in kosovo and of course you can see today

the tremendous cost social political and economic costs of that sort of policy if you ask anybody living in kosovo or for that matter many of the former soviet republics because of the way in which the soviet union was dismantled because of the way in which the western powers moved into eastern europe and so ukraine is in many ways a battleground certainly a battleground of words and economic battleground but militarily speaking as well we shouldn't forget that right before the on the eve of the beijing olympics the georgia russia war rather the georgia war in south the said began and it was precisely at that moment that the world many people around the world finally realized what georgia had become a forward arm of nato a de facto colony of the western imperial forces and of course i i don't mean to oversimplify it but the west of ukraine could be headed in that direction particularly if you look at the economic statistics in the west of ukraine which is tremendously under developed with rampant unemployment and serious problems of

poverty that is what is being played upon and certainly by the extreme right wing in ukraine stephen do you buy into the nato angle because i think it's absolutely true if you look at the association agreement it does talk about military and security relations with brussels that's a back door. this so-called economic partnership agreement that the e.u. has offered to ukraine is discussed in the west solely as an economic and i put it in quotes civilizational choice but you're absolutely right the thousand page document includes a whole section on military provisions which if i read them correctly bind ukraine if it signs this document to adhere to nato policy in general that of course is moving nato at least de facto right to the center of. ukraine so the military component that was not discussed in western media commentary is

part of this whole agreement mark one hundred years ago was the start of the first world war and i'm not prone to hyperbole but you know what happens when neither side blinks. well we know and of course we still have a potential nuclear confrontation it's on it's unlikely to come to that but i think we have to be prepared for the fact that if you assume a policy of going for the truculent of the russian state trying to disintegrate it you're de facto supporting the traction and other separatists hidden inside russia then the must be a risk that something on intended will happen after all in two thousand and eight georgia perhaps didn't intend to kill a dozen russian peacekeepers but it did that precipitated a real crisis who knows if their own people who may go over the edge in the ukraine and do something to attack russian servicemen in sebastopol for instance which

could begin to spiral out of control and i'm afraid because western public opinion has been so proposed not just by the newspapers and the news media but by popular culture by disc jockey sniggering that putin is a terrible bogey even we would have a great difficulty in restraining or pinions just as i'm afraid say in the jingoistic world in one thousand nine hundred every public could be persuaded that they were about to be attacked by. dangerous country even though each post must be defensive and yet somehow or other they will be fighting a war to grab from each other let me jump in here to fish stephen cohen i want to give you the last word if you could talk to president obama about this what would you tell me thirty seconds. i would tell you we need a new american policy toward russia that the march on moscow has to stop and that the opportunities for cooperation that would benefit our national security are enormous and he is wasting those opportunities all right gentlemen thank you for a fascinating debate many thanks to my guests in new york and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here at r.t. see you next time and remember.

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the in the. the olympic torch starts the final leg of its historic relay is it arrives in the host city of sochi heralding the imminent start of the two thousand and fourteen winter games. the u.s. warns international firms against doing business with iran saying the partial lifting of sanctions doesn't mean the iranian market is up for grabs yet. afghanistan reveals it's been trying to hammer out a deal with the taliban as the u.s. role in the country past twenty fourteen becomes less.