and those stream pipeline so i wonder if there is perhaps a bit of a gap between what the european leaders say and russia and the what they actually do so ok but but there's a big gap between what we mean by russia and when what we mean by the russian government right so the particular conflict the screwball conflict is not a conflict between europe and russia per se it's a conflict between european governments and the russian government over what they believe in europe to be russian government actions in a particular european country now doesn't mean we're going to shut down all relations with russia as a country no but does it mean that we're going to change relations with russia as a government yes and in that context expelling diplomats is not just a symbolic gesture it's a very practical gesture to signal displeasure from one government to another well but if it says you say a very practical gesture i wonder how does it actually address davis rather fusing chemical weapons in europe because i would think that even that was indeed the case of the european governments blood the narrative that the u.k. government is now trying to put forward that would call for

a military action don't you think that expelling a diplomat. to lead for that kind of a front if we tried to solve every problem like this with military action the world would be a much more chaotic place than it is today of course you don't address chemical weapons use only through the expulsion of diplomats the expulsion of diplomats is a symbol of displeasure or discomfort or distaste for one government to another but that symbol is part of a larger process of diplomacy that's aimed to control these weapons of mass destruction to make sure that they're not used in an economy and some in a way in that context i think that's an entirely appropriate response but it's not a complete response and we would expect that this policy would evolve to increase the controls on the use of these types of weapons and to make sure that the prohibition against their use in another country isn't forced but it's not going to be enforced by the other countries and should be self and forced by the governments involved because it jones i know that you are of the opinion that russia why. it's

to see the e.u. divided or perhaps even dismembered and i wonder if you see your british actions in this cripple case and by that i mean every i have a hand in diplomacy a little bit of arm twisting particularly when it comes to smaller european nations to enforce these so-called solidarity i wonder if you see those type of actions as also contributing to the european divisions because around two dozen countries did expel the russian diplomats and ten didn't isn't that a division that. the u.k. how to strengthen ok so let's go back to the initial premise of your question i think the russian government has an interest in dividing europe particular sanctions policy and probably in this case as well because that would seem to the goal of dividing europe would be to diminish the impact of the sanctions or to break their imposition of the european union level i think that's a completely legitimate aspiration for the russian government but i don't think that that represents an aspiration of russia as a country to see europe as

a political entity divided in a fundamental way i think that there's a very instrumental and very contextual specific so in that context i think i think the fact is that europe seems to be holding together far better than we would have expected particularly since july two thousand and fourteen and that european solidarity in the context of this group all case is actually quite impressive particular at a time when europeans are having these complex negotiations over britain's desire to leave the european union now as britain leaves the european union that's obviously going to change the economic relationship in europe and it's going to change the political relationship as well but i'm not i'm not convinced that britain's leaving is going to lead to the disintegration of europe in political terms or in economic terms on the contrary i think that there are good signs that suggest both politically and economically that europe is going to keep coming together well the british narrative is a bit shaky to put it politely the u.k. foreign secretary was already caught lying the house of the victim seems to be miraculously improving there just. that said again skip paul is no longer in

a critical condition his health is getting better by the day and let's just admit this is not something you would expect after being exposed to supposedly one of the deadliest nerve agents ever created. if that narrative proves to be either falsified or simply inaccurate don't you think that this u.k. after its two. martial european countries around it don't you think that it made backfire against london nobody likes to looks tippett ok so let's put the hypothetical to the side for the moment the fact of matter is i'm not a chemical weapons expert and i'm not a neurobiologist so i don't actually understand how these neuro agents work or what the pathologist would unfold if you were exposed to them and then were to recover later if that's even a possibility that's all beyond my knowledge base all i can say is that from a diplomatic level the story that the british have told is

a story that has resonated quite clearly in the council of europe and has generated quite a bit of solidarity in terms of european and united states response to what the british have explained they believe and most europeans and americans have accepted it is a russian action on british territory now now the technical side of this aside that solidarity is real now if if this story were to fall apart in some way then there would be a reconsideration of policy but of course when the facts change people's policies change that's what's supposed to happen would that be a fundamental fracture between britain and the rest of europe the fact that the facts to change would not change the relationship per se no i and i'm not suggesting it would but i think when ever we talk about solidarity credibility and integrity i actually matters and if you were arm twisted into solidarity on false pretext i simply don't think many people would feel good about it even in the

countries that traditionally do not have a very good relationship with russia simply because as i said nobody likes to be stupid well i mean let's put the word stupid aside right because i think you have a you have a really interesting question about. what happens when countries are wrong and we have a really good laboratory experiment on that which was the u.s. case for the prosecution of the war against iraq in two thousand and three in that case was predicated on the existence of weapons of mass destruction in iraq controlled by saddam hussein's regime and it was discovered later that that turned out to be wrong now no did that inaccuracy fundamentally change the transatlantic relationship i'm not so sure did it fundamentally change relations with europe because remember europe's europeans were deeply divided over the iraq issue i'm not so sure about that as well. on the contrary i think that in many ways european integration is strengthened from the experience and relations across the atlantic and strengthened from the experience because we've all learned that paying

attention your allies is a good thing to do and to keep them in board in terms of the communication strategy let's not forget george w. bush's administration in the first instance when the iraq war was prosecuted was actually much more of a go it alone administration the second george w. bush administration set as a priority building and strengthening relations with europe and so i would argue that when these kinds of mistakes happen the natural thing among friends is to figure out why the mistake happened and then to ensure that they have procedures in place to make sure that those mistakes don't lead to policy mistakes in the future well of person professor jones i would totally agree with you on that even though i think it's worth mentioning that britain also played a very active role in the run up to the war in iraq we just heard bill garia saying that it may reconsider its policy. based on how the situation develops there are reports coming from germany of politicians hiring people to titian's and the anglo-american government expressing some degree of dismay at how little factual

information has been let out by by britain don't you think that these latest developments run the risk of validating the so-called proc nlin camp in europe countries. like hungary austria even certain groups in germany and italy i'm not sure what you mean by validating there have been divisions within countries on russian policy european russian policy all along and we can trace these divisions back even to the end of the cold war so so the idea that there are politicians within countries who are expressing disapproval or disaffection with the policy of the european union or of nato as a whole is unsurprising to me at all that they would use opportunities like the kind of news reporting that you're citing to express their disapproval also unsurprising but does that mean that that's going to lead to an official change in policy i think that's

a very different issue in the policies so far have been very consistent despite the fact that this same voices of division within countries have been making themselves heard well if the policy has been consistent and yet in a number of countries be have already seen the change of governments that. more pro kremlin or kremlin neutral i think that's where the be a more accurate term done before italy would be one example austria would be another and i think there are quite a number of politicians and europe who would claim that this policy of a phobia using russia as a scarecrow. in international relations is actually working against those very countries and the sanctions to maybe i maintain to add the you know urging of the united states sometimes the united kingdom but at the end of the day they come herding local populations so if doc narrative that you can average of and this case was disproven don't you think that that would give a political boost to those those political forces that already seem to be on the

roll in europe well i mean the premise of the question again is a little bit challenging right because the policy is not russa phobia no one has a policy to be afraid of russia the policy is to avoid having countries deploy weapons of mass destruction in the. the boundaries of another country that's the policy in iraq i'm sorry i first of all of russia also believe that you should not use chemical weapons especially bad chemical weapons on the territory of another country but i think at this point of time it is pretty clear that nobody has established where where that the chemical agent has come from the british government is claiming that to be the case but as you said before you are now the next day they are suppose boris johnson is not a chemist he's not an expert in chemical weapons so how would he know so when you say that is not the policy i simply disagree with you there because over the last couple of weeks what we've heard coming from london is purest the fall being its political arguments one political argument after another without any substantial

factual details about the actual crime so we have to leave aside your claim about there not being any substantial factual details because we because i'm not in a position to judge that what i can judge is that the british government believes that there are substantial factual details that allow it to make claims that assign blame on the government of russia right now once we accept that premise that they have factual details in their possession that allow them to assign blame in this way and they're able to share those details with other governments and other governments agree that the assignment of blame is accurate then the idea that this is a policy to make russia scarecrow in international relations falls away and it becomes as i said a policy to avoid having governments deploy weapons of mass destruction as an instrument of foreign policy within the boundaries of another country i think that's a fair policy and as you say and i think it's important that we all admit that we agree on this i think that's a fair policy with which everyone should be in agreement in so to the extent to

which the policy works and in forcing that norm i think we're all better off and i would add that the policy in the context of the conflict in ukraine has a similar similar normative basis right nobody wants to see another government interfere in the domestic politics. of a country in a violent way and so to the extent to which that we can convince governments not to do that that we can reinforce international norms then that's a good thing and that's what the sanctions policy is directed at it's not directed at making russia into a bug bear it's directed at him forcing the international norm well professor jones let me stop you right there and we have to take a very short break now but we will be back in just a few moments states in. the

slogan see the blue of them someone. who was before. much of those who heard it's a preview or you should see him we will. we will go. but he. will show you the slip if you will for the media since the collector who the. more most of these girls will be doing good girls. don't go to shows look but do you distribute belonging to show the story to actually go. to starbucks to take it to need to fill it with the little mist thanks to look it is it's. himself from understand just meet them ashton. took advantage of complete control to.

be of producers to post listening to snoop on what the new look because that is the closer with you for your supporters to your machine station shouldn't be you sure can. good tool for one who's doing it does it. come back to all the parts that eric jones director of the european and eurasian studies at johns hopkins university mr jones i don't want to get into these old argument but the only way to enforce international norm is to comply with it

yourself you know if there is a very extensive record on the part of western countries if interfering militarily or by other means into the internal affairs of other countries of russia including so the best way i think from moscow to encourage russia to do something would be to sat an example why do you think it's so difficult for western capitals to just show russia and other countries the way the right way so it's really interesting that you say that i mean you know as a political scientist and as a political scientist there's a guy robert axelrod who's who's done studies of this type of thing in in the studies what axelrod has been able to show is that the most effective way to enforce a norm is not to allow other countries to break the norm and to give them a pass right but rather it's to recognise the mistakes that you make yourself and i think that there's been an incredible amount of mistake recognition on the part of the west in terms of the types of issues that you've raised if in the past western

countries have intervened domestically in the politics of other countries they've learned that that is a mistake and they've accepted that that is a mistake and they've begun increasingly to atone for that in so the goal then is to look at russians. a look now it's your turn to accept that this is probably a mistake to intervene probably it's certainly a mistake to intervene in ukraine and it's definitely would be a mistake to do to deploy weapons of mass destruction on british soil i'm saluted me and i think. we would perhaps agree that the united states is the major international player in the ukrainian politics these days these countries actually run almost run as a as a yet another american state so when you talk about interfering into the affairs of various countries especially a country that is on the border with russia again you have to begin with yourself but i want to come back to the the point of your earlier mentioned about the united

states recognizing in atoning for its mistakes and we all know what the role john bolton the. national security the designated national security adviser played the in the run up to the iraqi war and yet he has just been designated as. one of the major opposed to in the trumpet ministration is that a form of atoning is that a form of recognizing the mistakes that you made that you've been talking about that moment ago ok so. you know the argument you're making is predicated on the whole time machine theory of governance right where we take somebody who made a decision in the early two thousand and then we look at the position that they're in today and we don't connect them with anything that happened in between right in the problem with that is that in the united states we had an election in two thousand and eight that was all predicated on the idea that the intervention that took place in the middle east was a giant foreign policy mistake in everything that the obama administration tried to

do for the eight years after that was to change american foreign policy and to change america's footprint in the middle east in order to correct for that mistake and to improve the situation right so so that's like eight years that we've all lied and out of your question then. no no let me stop you right there because president obama didn't stop the united states from interfering in libya in turning that country into a complete cares it didn't stop the united states from interfering in syria and turning that country into what it is right now so you know it's i find it very troubling but wait you know because the libya thing barack obama admitted at the end of his eight years in office that the libya thing was a terrible mistake right and if you were to go back and look at the interview that he gave to the atlantic magazine you would see he highlights that's good enough for ruining the country but i think you misunderstand the the way these foreign policies work he has a very clear understanding of how the decision was made and why the decision was

made it was a close run decision he's not happy with the way it turned out and in fact the lesson that he learned from libya shaped very much his policy towards syria which was the point of the argument that he was making in the atlantic interview and to argue in that context that american intervention in syria explains the turmoil in syria is a complete mistake right because it was american non intervention in syria that allowed the syrian conflict to evolve in the way it did now we could argue that if america had intervened that would have been disastrous in its own right and i think that there are many voices who would believe that to be the case but but the fact of the matter is that the obama administration did exactly the opposite thing in syria for what it did in libya and the consequences end up being much the same now as a foreign policy expert my analysis of this would be that maybe our lesson is that there are no good easy solutions in these times of conflict situations well president beg to differ with you i've spent quite

a lot of time in syria especially in the beginning of that conflict and i totally don't buy this american argument of american nonintervention the united states allowed its closest ally at that time turkey and saudi arabia and qatar and also israel to intervene. as much as they want to and plus we know i merican agency is to have funded trained certain rebel groups that it described as moderate that position don't nobody has ever really vetted them properly and on the top of that as we know president obama is no longer in office there is another president in the white house who bombed syria just last year for no apparent reason i don't know if you're heard but the american defense secretary just came out last month saying that the united states has no proof not evidence that sarin gas was every used in syria when in fact that was the main premise of threatening that country with with the strikes so this whole idea that you guys can regret later on after doing so

much damage i just do not understand how you get to that. i think you're right to argue that there are certain consistencies in american foreign policy but in the premise of the question you're wrong because you know look at the way you framed american intervention in syria at the start you said look america obviously intervene in intervene by allowing other countries to intervene without stopping them so american non action is a form of intervention in american action is a form of intervention and the reason that american non action american action or both forms of intervention is because of the general presumption that the united states has a responsibility to be involved in every conflict everywhere in the world in the basic reality is the united states has relations with governments in every part of the world in having relations with governments in every part of the world the united states is involved in every conflict in every part of the world in either through its actions or its in actions the united states is going to be blamed for

the outcome so the question is ok what is the best policy for the united states to follow is it a policy of action in action or some combination of the two and calibrating that policy has been the challenge that american foreign policy makers have faced ever since the end of the second world war and that explains. the consistency in american foreign policy now if we were to look at the current administration and see a radical break with that consistency the radical break might need to disown it responsibility for all these conflicts and there was a lot of concern when president trump was running as candidate trump that he might do that that he might retreat into an isolationist form of american foreign policy what we've seen is that as he's come into office he's accepted the inevitability of american engagement on virtually every part of the world and so president trump just like every president before him sends the end of the second world war is implicated in the same dilemma that either their action or their in action will be judged as causal for the events that follow and when the events are not good

american action or inaction is always going to be laid to blame now since you mentioned president trump i heard your comments on the miller investigation and you seem to believe that the reason why it has unearthed so little in the way off the rack trump russia ties is because the at the russians he told the ns and i understand it's indeed challenging to find a black cat in a dark room but i would assume it would be even harder if the cat is not there i wonder if you even allow for the possibility that there is nothing nefarious in in terms of contacts with russia if in fact there were any contact so it's oh i have a black dog and i can tell you that if if if i don't have a light on when i wake up in the middle of the night i almost invariably step on him so finding a black dog in a dark room doesn't turn out to be so challenging i think the situation that you are posing is you know is there clear evidence of collusion between the trumpet ministration it and the russian government in the context of the campaign that's

something that the more investigation is looking into there are obviously investigative journalists who have spent an awful lot of time looking into that that's not something that as an academic i spend an awful lot of time looking into but but what i can say is that the mower and best. geisha in is finding it increasingly evidence that there was impropriety on the part of certain actors associated with the trauma campaign which is why the more investigation has as ended up laying indictments against specific actors that were involved in the trunk campaign whether it goes beyond that remains to be seen now for anyone who is looking for evidence of collusion i would suggest they rate latest statement from the kremlin which said that president putin is actually open today meeting with president trump not at a neutral territory at but actually in washington after all those expulsions of russian diplomats and the closure of the consulate in seattle following the this creep i like patience and this is actually for russians if hearts you know process

dad why would president bush and be so our common dating and so friendly towards the president of the country that just expelled our diplomats how do you read it why do you think president putin is being such a softy with president trump one of the president putin is being a softy with anyone i'm you know my my sense is that president putin doesn't really do softy that much in that's because president putin has a serious and fairly consistent foreign policy and it's part of that serious and fairly consistent foreign policy his dialogue with the american administration successive american administrations to greater or lesser effectiveness in creating dialogue with the trumpet ministration is something that president putin has been determined to do and he's been determined to do that from the start of the administration we know this because of the connections that were made between the diplomatic agents here in in the united states and the trump campaign as it merged into or formed a transition team and he's remained. open to communication sent to the trump

administration started so am i surprised that he's willing to come to the united states to meet with the trumpet ministration not so much to my surprise that he wants to meet with the trumpet ministration again not so much i think that their dialogue together is something that should be encouraged and should be fostered in a. not surprised that they seek to do that now whether that's going to resolve the underlying tension remains to be seen remember those norms that we believe both of us should be enforced we need to come up with a framework where they are enforced both by the united states on american actions and by the russian government on russian actually professor jones on this point if agreement i have to thank you for taking by then disengaging conversation i also encourage our viewers to keep it going in our social media pages as for me hope to see you again same place same time here on the worlds apart.

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