did you tell you that. we. walked. hello and welcome across all things were considered. were insults in the south of russia attending the discussion on this edition of the program we discussed. and its impact on u.s. russia relations.

joining us to discuss this and more is dominic leven he is a research professor at cambridge university a fellow of the british academy and of trinity college we also have william forth he is the daniel webster professor of government at dartmouth college and. he is the program director of the paul vi discussion group ok gentlemen let's talk about reese a phobia. if you travel around you know the world give us an example of recent phobia than you've experience. well i think it's very clear in the days in the united states i was there just a couple of weeks ago and what shocked me for instance that when the massacre in los vegas happened several american t.v. channels paid more. broad costs to the so-called mentally.

to the investigation of that terrible massacre and this is indicative i think we will be dealing with it was so full be. it states for for a good long while it would be i think we'd all agree that there's a there's something genuinely something historically called use of phobia but there's something else play also dominick and it's it's usage right now we just heard an example than that ok i mean this meddling in the election ok i don't really want to go too much into it after a year of talking about it there's not much evidence to really grab onto here but you know this is turned into a political strategy a big worse a phobia has always been a political strategy on occasion. and it's not just phobia using some foreign government some foreign threat pointing the finger has traditionally been

a very good way if you like. a domestic audience papering over cracks within. specific reasons for. the general ok we'll get we'll get specific ones you know but william you know historically speaking the united states and russia the united states the soviet union they were on the same side in the first world war the same side in the second world war. where does it where does it come from i mean because you know their perceptions of russia. change but they don't change what if there's a persistence there the the the egg ribera the aggressive bear the drunken bear we can go all the way back to the napoleonic wars all the way. the present some of those perceptions never change what's the reason for the. well i think that it's fair to point out that since the united states became a superpower we basically never had good relations with russia so i don't want to hinge too much on the russophobia issue that they are genuine i think they dove

tail they do dovetail i think they i think a extreme anti russian views may make it harder for the united states to deal with russia but the underlying issues are much deeper than any any particular russia we just never had good relations maybe even around the same time we have differences of interests ok but that. doesn't account for the be kind of blind prejudice is that time united states out of competition with with china but you don't see that kind of china phobia but you do with russia and russia is definitely different category i completely agree with the premise of your conversation that it is different and that if you look at hollywood movies and how are the russian characters portrayed if you look at popular culture. there's a lot of miss about russia people cite statistics about russian decline which are interactor it after russia has stopped the clotting on some metrics that hasn't registered with people's minds there's all kinds of this sort of stuff going on which does not apply to other countries partly it's only into us domestic politics we can talk about that partly it's going to russia itself russia has long and

always had personal mystic regimes there's always one leader you can look to come on let's face it for forty years of russian history i hate to say this next to my historian colleague but generally have had personalistic regimes and when you have personalistic regimes it's easier for people to personalize their description of the country much easier in the case of russia to talk about a region there is a little bit then you can on the other side dmitri you know juxtapose that we just heard here is that you know we had the czarist period we had the revolutionary period we had the communist period in in the middle of that we had a very intense stalinist regime and then we had a liberal liberalize soviet union. to some we could say that to one degree or another like in the seventy's in the eighty's and then we have what we have now is a very different political experience i don't think it's personalizing the leader we have different very different political systems but the same prejudices are there again what accounts for the persistence of these prejudices about russians

well i think what is at the core here is the is a part of the western civilization but of that. at the same time it has to be too different to be fully integrated into the political it and this is the cause for. that because unlike china chinese completely different china is more perceived as a homogeneous part of the west with russia or on the contrary we have a combination of fear dissatisfaction and the thinking there in the ideal world russia should be a normal group so she is not for example looking at you as a russian you are a white person ok that identifies you with the west right ok. i think that's really the point here is that russia. is nominally part of the west that's

a very deep long conversation right there but there is the perception in the west that because their russia has this western connection it should embrace the west at its core the russians have resisted in doing that well the russians have been divided some russians of the west with great enthusiasm others have seen that as a betrayal of russian identity so i mean you can't generalise about all russians in that it self was moved from period to period but i think william's partly right one of the reasons certainly in the united states russophobia is quite simply that ever since the united states became a serious international power certainly a superpower the soviet union was its only rival in the group which is still you know at the top of american revising on foreign policy of people who were brought up in the context of the cold war so i find nothing surprising about that i wouldn't rely on the fact that in twenty years time there won't be similar feelings about china. it's simply that they haven't yet had time to really bite

and china has not been. rival explicit rifle in the way that russia has if you don't buy britain then russophobia. goes deeper and has a number of other causes you do have to remember that for most of the nineteenth century the united states and russia were distant allies one of my voice russia was the only european which supported the union through and through throughout the war because mostly the russian government saw the united states as a rival to britain so things do change and i think you have to be careful about imagining that these prejudices are movable you know will you it's been said very often is that. americans need an enemy you know. you look at. fundamentalists is ok is an enemy russia is an enemy and when i look at

coverage of russia in particularly american media it's the boogie man thing and i don't want to go through all the examples because it gets ludicrous at some point here but do americans really need an enemy for their own self identity about their own sense of strength or their vulnerabilities everybody does every need to know. for us we flatter russia by making that group sometimes but sometimes call that flattery sure you're looming so large in our imaginations that really absurd sometimes and too could be but. it is a we pay a great compliment in rising russia up to be the country against which we define ourselves but i think dimitri's point is so well taken that some of the differences in how we caricature were foreign powers because bear in mind we character all foreign powers in the united states not just russia they're all caricature of the way they're treated in the popular press one of the differences about russia i

think brilliantly was they're not all threats they're not all thrown in this is fairly but there's a shifting shifting kaleidoscope of threats that all used to be centered around and for some still is centered around. islamic extremism in this sort of thing but let me stress one thing which i'm sure you're familiar with which there's a population of this of the united states i can't measure it but i certainly have a lot of friends who belong in this category who over russia and actually love lady amir putin and wish putin were their president i mean so when you're talking about when you have a choice between trump and clinton i'm not surprised there you go back and that will get laughs all across the united states of america so let's be clear there are there are limits to this. but there are consequence how many people in our country little of the pictures of putin bare chested they like that they like that they like these women to think that they want to be those like him in the u.s. that's part of the homes were destroyed that will be a really big. rejects postmodernism i think that's a very different thing and russia is a is a an example of a country a society even

a civilization that rejects postmodernism and in this sense of things but a mere putin represents yeah yeah well i completely agree but i think we also need to take into account the experience old the end of the cold war there was a very widespread delusion that this is the threat to hold moment of the which russia will eventually become a part and parcel of the west. and everything will be all yes yes and russia will embrace the western values one hundred percent will transform its national interests to the goldmans to the west and preferences and become a normal european power integrated into the famous european nations this transformation failed i think it was an illusion from the very beginning and this fall and anger and dissatisfaction with the with the russian development bloss. quite. the challenge what's called america has your money or american because we

live in a unocal the moment. of this like well russia tried to get integrated into this you know pool of moments above the terms were not satisfactory for russia so russia started to challenge that. we have a snowball or. just by challenging gemini that's by definition aggressive you know it's always translated into the media if you believe in the paradigm of the end of history it is second it is challenging by the country which is perceived as a loser of the cold war yes. it is challenging by a contract which is perceived as a declining power which does not have a right to challenge unlike china which is perceived as a rising plus there is many in the united states considered cheap let me jump in here gentlemen we have to go to

a hard break and after that heart break we'll continue our discussion on most of phobia today with our.

and. by then coffee session. by then is a shift that long. not. going on more. so it. then you know support was your view how did it move the multiple injuries among current america so don't look yourself you will see the look of the show real you know mars on the phone to the book on a few members of the medical social services say yes but i don't know if it's a book in a moral sense of what a month. from hanumant i'm not a. tough allowed me. to walk. down long enough something not set in. the model as

a little slip must say what i can now maybe i made in comedy gold dust so. in case you're new to the game this is how it works now the economy is built around corporations corporations run washington the washington controls the media the media control over the voters elected the businessman to run this country business equals power you must it's not business as usual it's business like it's never been done before. welcome back across the uk where all things are considered a dream and you were talking about.

let me go to him one of the things that i find very concerning is that i understand you know i'm an american. william you're an american we understand how. political campaigns work particularly presidential ones and politicians are a lot more loose with rhetoric it's part of the. what we call barn burning process you know get the get the basic side and all that and you know this is kind of you know with the surprise outcome of the u.s. presidential election there is a political class much of the media is looking for a reason why something happened. like distress there's still really very little evidence to back up this whole narrative over a year now but you know we've heard some very threatening things that you know russia is controlling america's democracy there in meddling in the elections of in

europe which again there's no evidence of it the intelligence communities have said well that's not the case here what worries me is that how do you walk back these things because there are things like the iran deal or syria that was going on in the middle east in general the rise of china the south china sea there's more and more issues here. there has to be some kind of relationship i'll say within the word partnership i'm sure there does but there's a general problem that these great challenges have to be addressed calmly between experienced. diplomat but that is very difficult to do in an increasingly rule media obsessed world and it's not just the problems with russia which are affected by this it's ever. we think we do and it has its dangers i mean civil society before nine hundred forty was a key cause of the first world war civil society is not always on the side of the

angels people exploit international rivalries build exaggerate international differences interest and sometimes the rhetoric becomes much more dangerous than the reality and becomes a reality and we're seeing that actually happening. oh you know a perfect example of a. campaign on the campaign trail candidate. made some overtures about why if we can just get along i mean and he's kind of folksy language which apparently had some traction among the amongst the electorate. after the election result was announced once the man is in office the powers that be the media and most of it is very liberal pushed very very hard against that and we've seen that you know trump is realized he's got some other battles to fight and he's not going to go down that path at least right now might

not know. as we put it the civil society plays a big role in this i mean now you have a society that is looking under its bed and you know around the closet and looking for the russians you know it's like almost like the one nine hundred fifty s. that is this very counterproductive for two of them one the most important countries in the world to work together i mean we can't work together now. but i say i do agree with that premise i think partisan politics the united states is evolving in such a way as to make it even harder than usual and it's always for the u.s. to run a consistent rational russia policy i mean basically the liberals. and democrats have transferred their deep hatred of donald trump to russia and putin now we have to this whole issue of the russian involvement in the u.s. elections you're right the tells the community has given no at. and for it they've simply said sort of x. catheter on authority that it happened but it's important recognize that many

americans believe that it happened i can't resolve this i don't have the technical expertise nor the information they believe that happens if they believe that it happened then of course that is red meat in a partisan political context it's hardly surprising to see democrats leaping for that red meat and in this money they know literally don't get me wrong i stand by what i want clearly agree with your premise that in order to have a rational russian policy we need to be able credibly to use sticks and impose pain on russia that has been part of it and also have carrots there has to be a deal to end the day the problem is the american political system seems incapable of actually making credible any real carrots it puts sanctions on it never takes them out you know i find that to be very presumptuous in a way dmitri i mean instead of carrots and sticks here i think one thing that would be actually a lot easier to do is say. what is your if i could speak you as a russian here you know what are your interests and what are your gripes with us and maybe we could start a conversation a respectful conversation

a respectful conversation that we could disagree also but you know this is part of the problem is that if you demonize a country and its people and its leader who is genuinely very popular among his own voters i mean if you don't reach out and say what's your deal i'm listening that would be the first step and once you heard that spiel is said well doesn't sound so unreasonable but we don't get that in the meet this kind of floor is necessary but it's possible in a normal situation but they live in a very abnormal time and i think the essence of this lack of normalcy and the reason for a rapid expansion over in the united states is that we are dealing with a combination. of two profound changes which are favorable towards the united states the first we are moving from the declining unipolarity to something

else american leadership. is is increasingly in the fact that. it is less and less and less possible for the united states to run the world. and there are people like trump maybe he's all alone in the white house game why should why should we exactly so this is the first the second reason moreover in addition with this global transformation we have transformation inside the many western societies and in the united states in particular and the need to these stablish mint. which observes just the collapse of their system of coordinates need explanation why you need to. say that's going a little bit too far i mean i think you know. i mean you're the historian here i think maybe twenty fifty years from now looking what happened in the united states . is there to. you know this the it's the establishment that is in

a state of shock because the this is this is not the this was expected i'm expected to different i think all of us did ok i mean there are very few people really. it's not a collapse it is just everything i'm very blurry it's like now that the the the mission is so unclear and there must be some reason for it absolutely i mean we have to keep in mind that this khorat i would say the system of coordinates is happening just twenty five years after the proclaimed victory of the west and proclaimed universalism of the west twenty five years in historical meaning is nothing is just the right of course the establishment is not ready for that. this. four bit cores they tried through. these troubles well instead of just juggling images right in giving credit i mean again you know living very

far from. powerful capitals in the west i live in moscow and and when i see what you know or the russians must have done this and they must be behind this and you're right i mean wow i really had no idea i mean. living here working here i just wonder why don't they apply that same magic domestically you know because it just seems so fanciful ok but it's interesting legal in the way it seems to be we've left something out which is that the forces which created. in the united states created the contemporary russian government as well the reaction again. in russia was rooted in the immense damage done to russian society in the one nine hundred ninety s. which went. has been happening in western europe or north america but there are a very many similarities and you have got actually

a rather similar globalist nationalist. attitude. and i think one of the reasons why. liberal elites. of course much more important in the united states have reacted against. franticly is because they're what read and to do them justice they have some right to be worried by. just where this could all end up i think it really is our system does break up and we go back to the one nine hundred thirty s. no one let's look at this a million and as we're rapidly running out of time here one of the i brought it up earlier and it's look kind of transcends geopolitics and it is this kind of modernity versus post maternity line right here russia is a very conservative country is very religion is actually growing in influence not declining i mean this is very much at variance with what's going on with the secularization and the transgenderism in all of that that is something

very alien inside of russia and for most people going back to what dominick had to say then one nine hundred ninety s. the great depression that russia had that was twice as worse if you look at g.d.p. decline and what not demographics that is the traumatic event of most contemporary russians today and when they look at this postmodern this agenda that's being played on the west they just don't feel very alien from it well again and so you can't be surprised if to be tree is right and you are right that russia is in fact leaning forward in pushing back against the american liberal world order and then postmodernism the point and it's leading standing forth as a conservative power that is standing for these principles you can hardly be surprised or shocked that the liberals. as a threat i mean it's just goes without saying you can't deny russia's agency in this. particular way it doesn't agree with its values easily if someone doesn't

agree with your values you're a threat well you have to remember that actually conservative nationalism if it gets populist and off can have some extremely dangerous consequences in the international order and the russians suffered more than anyone else given that they took most of the burden of defeating hitler of course it's nonsense and it's insulting nonsense to call mr putin. but that does to some extent reflect fears in western elites that this is where the world might be going might even be where their own societies are go it is sometime it's one of the. one of the predictions this is a very conservative prediction is that more than a quarter of the british population in thirty years' time is going to be a muslim origin just imagine what that is going to do to english conservative nationalists well you know what it will rapidly running out of time german i don't think putin russia will be blamed for that as all the time we have here with my

guests here in sochi at the discussion club i want to thank our viewers as well and stay with us next time remember cross-talk rules. thank you. it will.

still exist. rico's treated as one. little come on. the island is controlled by the us government and some

crew even dependents. either. still many do wish to join the u.s. hundreds more leave every day. with the country at a crossroads anger on the island is on the rise. here's what people have been saying about rejected in the senate it's full on. the only show i go out of my way to launch you know what it is that really packs a punch oh yeah it is the john oliver of r t america is doing the same we are

apparently better than the blue. sea people you've never heard of love redacted the night president of the world bank so very. seriously send us an e-mail. coming up on r t f light the outpour florida light and power is nearly fifteen million dollar bid to build a new nuclear energy. then a deadly blast kills thirty people and injured at least another forty five at a kabul mosque late friday night. and finally come back the regional government passed a religious neutrality log keeping women from veiling while enjoying public services . it's friday october twentieth four pm in washington d.c. i'm military and.