ah, ah ah hello, welcome to well, the party. most of us would agree that a bad piece is better than a good war, although it may be just as heartless if not more, to the preservation of life and the nature of human condition. but once a war begins and political moralizing exhausted, so what factors need to be in place in order to ended once and for all? to discuss that i am now joined by research, rubinstein, professor of conflict resolution and public affairs at george mason university. professor rubinstein. it's great to talk to you. thank you very much for your time . thank you. i'm glad to be here. now you wrote in one of your recent articles that

the best time to undertake piece talks is one to parties. the warring parties having stepped out, di, military efforts declared that they would never ever talk to the enemy. do you think we have reached that point in ukraine? i think that we're approaching it. we may not have reached quite yet, but i think we're getting very close to it so that in fact i'm a number of us who are studying the. the conflict on who are in conflict resolution are sensing that the, the, the tide seems to be turning on. you know, that it's been very, very difficult for some people like me. and many of my colleagues who think that there should be negotiations. and soon i've been very difficult for us to get a hearing. it's, or maybe the, the mainstream newspapers, the new york time,

the washington post and so forth are not writing or not running are up as are letters to the editor. and he was very distinguished group of people and people like jeffrey sachs, of columbia, or richard falk at princeton and others are finding themselves i have been silenced, but i think this is changing. and i fact, i noticed even in the new york times this morning, there's a quote from an expert in the rand corporation who is beginning to talk about the possibility of negotiations and well before we go deeply more deeply into that can actually oppose what i think is the most crucial question in discussing the possibility of these talks, and that is, who are the warring parties? who do you think are the the sides to these indeed artistic and heartbreaking conflict? well, i certainly agree with you about both terrific and heartbreaking. and i think that the, the parties in conflict resolution the, the usual rule is that you negotiate with the parties who are most alienated and

who are using violence against each other. so that the, the immediate parties would be great in russia. ok. but it seems clear, especially given the history of this conflict and given the issues that are involved in it, that they can, you know, she can stop there. they might well start with the green russia and deal with issues and immediately in the spirit between those 2 countries. but they would have to proceed to the next phase in which europe and the united states were also involved. i think that's again, a very interesting and indeed a crucial point, whether the talks need to start or proceed to involve the united states. because when we consider the openness of the parties,

russia is open for negotiations, i mean, must go for produce a statement almost on a daily basis that it's open for talks. it is the ukrainian leadership that pass certain legislation banning itself from engaging in the talks. but is any of that relevant without a more explicit and frankly, more genuine and more principal position of the united states on the issues of war and peace and ukraine. again, taking into account all the contacts, the under surface on the ground context that lead to this war. yes, i think you make a very good point and they will have to, when we think about how we get, we began and i have to say that in my opinion, i think, i think, i think for russia to move against ukraine as it did, i think was a mistake, and the one who strikes the 1st blow is always

a disadvantage afterwards. but even so that conflict that blow, it may be unjustly struck, but it was not provoked. i, there was a really a deliberate, a refusal to discuss major security issues with, with russia, with president putin who wanted to discuss the want to talk about a restructuring of the european security architecture. that has to be done. it seems to me that that issue has not disappeared, hasn't gone away. and certainly if the united states were in the same position, i having, you know, rocket base is positioned on its borders and so forth. we were, you know, we wouldn't sit back and take it either. so those issues have got to, it seems to me real peer at some stage. and even if not in the 1st year, just quite russians decision to move into your brain as a, as a mistake. i think that's a huge and as essential tragedy for russia and, you know,

all the strategic for calculations notwithstanding. i think it's still, it's a major tragedy for, for our people because many of us have relatives in ukraine and we suffer from that war. not as much as the craniums, but it pains us a huge deal, but going back to the strategic issues as far as i know, more than half of your cranes, current budget is subsidized by the west. many of the weapons it's using on the battlefields come up either from the west or with the help of western financing and many western countries. and 1st and foremost, the united states. and it took trina documents, strategic documents, described russia as, as anatomy as a, as an adversary and advocate the policy of active containment of my country through neither expansion. do you think that war would ever be able to come about or be sustained without the help of the united states?

no, i think the united states was a visit was a moving party in the war. and the united states domination of nico is also, is also clear. a great tragedy is, i think, really, exactly as you say that this relations us, russian relations have been framed in terms of there's an intense animosity and not simply based on and disagreements over policy. but something that goes deeper and we've been trying, we've been some of my colleagues and i have been trying to analyze this sort of, we've been working for 2 or 3 years, talking to people and so forth, trying to find out where this is coming from, where why special, intense, and in my study, if you take a newspaper like the new york times, i mean, you simply can't find an article that has anything nice to say about russia at all . and by the way,

they also don't have anything nice to say about china. so ok, so one possibility is that the u. s. position in the world now, in some ways is being challenged. the u. s. position in the world has become uncertain. and it's a very strange situation since the u. s. is by far the dominant military power in the world of several people says not since the roman empire is 11 power been so militarily dominant, but, and yet there are signs of weakening of the weakening of this. so, you know, this kind of this global gemini, so in other words, there's a kind of defensiveness about the united states position. when you say that there is animosity, i think it's one sided, animosity the russians don't. hey, the americans, i mean i myself started in the united states,

we read the american literature. we have many friends in the united states, and then american lifestyle has long been infatuated here in russia. but when you say that the america feels challenged, i don't understand what is that challenge? i mean, do we challenge the american by the american, stayed by the very fact of our existence by the very desire to develop our, ourselves or our neighborhood by our i think, boy, you know, birth given right to build connections with our neighbors and with other countries what is it that is challenging the united states from our side in the united states, i think is not being challenged by russia. i think the challenges are over different store made my own feeling about it. when i say defensive, by the way, i mean what i mean, what i'm trying to point out is that very often aggression, aggressive activities and anti social activities are the result of fish of a person feeling threatened feeling or scaling the fear. and the exactly,

that's the underlying emotion there, but what i'm trying to understand is, what is it that the united states is fearing given that again it's the most powerful country of the world is the most prosperous country that will, it still has a lot of the leverage is to, you know, produce outcomes that it desires. what is it, what is it that threatening it on the inside? i'm, i'm almost tempted to tell you, go back and look at the history of the, of the late roman empire. and you'll see a nation that was threatened not so much from outside, but from by the internal divisions and in an unsolved social problems in the u. b, u. s. as a, as a nation, which, you know, in many ways it's got a wonderful history and it's done wonderful things. but it also is one of the most unequal societies on earth. it has a, there's a radical growth in any quality,

social and economic inequality. the very rich have never been richer, the pretty much everybody else can turn compared with them is for, there's great suffering among large sections of the population in the country, and particularly people living in the industrialized areas and in urban gatos and so on. there's tremendous suffering and yet, of these problems are not being solved for a number, for reasons that we could talk about this. and i'm sure you would agree with me that projecting those problems on to other nations is not going to how the situation. i'm sure that there was a lethal people in power who are trying to make those strategic decisions, including a decision to, you know, pump your crane with weapons or provoke china over taiwan incessantly. i'm sure they understand that this in and of itself is not going to how the, you know, power divide or the income divide within the united states. what do you think is the ultimate motivation? what are they trying to get for themselves for their own people?

they're, well, it's not rational when you, you know, when you talk about motivation, you're talking about rationality. and what i'm saying is that when people are feeling threat will feel your people threatened by internal disunity and table feeling. if you talk to look at the polls and ask the people in the us how they think the country is doing, the men, the great massive people say they think it's doing very badly. and people start looking around for scapegoats, especially, you know, if you're not, if you're, if you've been taught not to blame your own system. if you're not supposed to be thinking about ways that the system could be restructured to become more fair and equitable and so forth. to everybody, then there's a tendency to strike out at others and at scapegoats. i mean, that's one part of it. the other part of it. and the answer your question seems to me is that the world in many ways is becoming multi polar. that the

u. s. has been the super, the sole superpower really now for some considerable period of time for decades. but now we're dealing not only with russia, which is in many ways, resurgent great power. china, which is clearly a great power in this country, learn to deal and to operate in a multi polar world as one great power among others. that's a big question and it's, it's going to take some re education here is going to take some work on our part except that new reality a professor romans thing. let's discuss some of the ways how the united states can take that very difficult and perhaps unpleasant lesson. after a short break. we will be back in just a few moments. stay tuned. a

a oh, nice hunter, rushin state. cool. never a thin 55. we did okay, so 92000 speedy. when else call you back with, we will van in the european union, the kremlin media machine, the state aunt, rush up to date and school ortiz food, that even our video agency, roughly all bands on youtube said

with cash. mm hm. mm. welcome back to one of the parts with returns. rubinstein, professor of conflict resolution and public affairs, and george mason university. professor reuben's thing before the break, we were talking about the very convenient habit on the part of the american to leads to sort of project that own and competency onto other nations and constantly search for the enemy an external enemy. but as i'm, i'm conscious, as it may seem, there are also many people who believe that,

that these a deliberate policy, deliberate strategy on the part of the american decision makers. and as you can imagine here in moscow, there not many people who believe in moral or democratic underpinnings of american actions in the ukraine. but many here give washington a credit for actually being quite strategic and rational because they believe that, you know, whether you like it or not. washington has succeeded in peach in ukraine against russia. and it's exceeded doing that at a very low cost. you know, roughly $900000000000.00 and you know, thousands of ukrainian or russian but not the american lives. and the. a from a strategic point of view, that's not a bad outcome. do you think that's really something that came without any deliberate thought on the part of american decision makers? so, you know, it's hard to say what's deliberating, what's not deliberate. i think that the,

i think that the that the decision to, to support ukraine, but it doesn't to support ukraine. i mean, you might say in one way it was made quite early. it was made in 2014, if not earlier, because the weapons flow started to started in a large scale at that time. so it was not simply your response to the invasion, although the invasion made it some ways impossible for washington not to respond. but i think you're, you're right to, to note at the beginning of your statement that there is, there is some rationality involved here. and i think it's important to point out that all sides in the store, both especially russia and the united states have in some ways, limited the kinds of military activity that they're engaged. and there is

a lot of self limitation going on on both sides in the united states armed gradients to the taste, but in many with many modern weapons, but has avoided giving them weapons that could strike deep into into worse. i would argue that they're the only reason for that is to maintain the appearance of a proxy war and prevented from, you know, becoming a true kinetic war. because if that happens, the cost to the united states would be much higher than they are at the moment. and again, this could be, you know, a rational way of waging a war, but pretending not to wage a war. which brings me to your question, we sort of touch before, but didn't quite answer. do you think there any motivation at this point of time for the united states to support peace talks? what could be possible piece benefits for the united states? because from a strategic point of view, it's has to be getting quite a lot and that's where i think there is a change,

a change in the air that things are starting to shift their united states as a, as a, as an electoral democracy, as a, as a country divided between 2 parties has probably never been more intentionally to, by least not since the american civil war has been. so intentionally divided between the democrats and republicans. but also it's almost, it's so even very evenly divided. and i think that in this kind of situation, i mean, the democrats are starting to realize it's a major mistake for them to be giving the republicans a piece, a piece blank in their glass in their platform to be given the piece issue. turning the pieces you over to the republicans and i don't think they want to go into it, but it didn't hurt them that much in the, in the election. that's just taken place for various reasons. i think the main

reason being that the election was really about donald trump and a few issues like abortion, much more than about for foreign policy. but i don't think the democrats want to go into 2024 with this war going on. i think you actually are helping us here very handsomely to connect the 2 issues, the american foreign policy and the internal divide that the united states is facing. and i wonder somebody who analyzes international conflicts. i'm sure you have a certain perspective on, on what could possibly, how the united states he'll, it's an internal internal ones. and one thing that i noticed is that in the run up to the mid term elections, both the republicans and the democrats portrayed the victory of the other side as a, as a major existential threat to the country. and the republicans did it as much as the democrats. i think the democrats actually did it even more than the republicans

. do you take that as just fiery convenient rhetoric or is it indeed a sign of a perilous gap between the not just the 2 parties, but between the 2 parts of the united states? yes, i think i think it is a sort of a barrel. and in fact, my university is, you know, we're doing a forum on november 18th. we're going to do an all day. so forum on the underlying causes of this conversation and what can be done about it and, and on the one i think it is a dresser. and the other hand, i have to say that in conflicts like this. and also you might say the same thing about ukraine, you can reach a point that the people in conflict resolution called the painful stalemate in which both sides are, are, are hurting. neither side is, is able to win a decisive victory. neither side is going to say we're going to win

a total victory, unconditional surrender, and all of that, that's not in the cards. and when you have a painful stay on me, and neither side can when totally. and then there's hope of a decent shot of a piece with honor of the just face. then i think conditions are actually right. ok for conflict resolution. and i think that may be also true in the case of our domestic conflicts here. that is, people are getting people are really getting tired. you know, when you think about, think about northern ireland, for example, where the violent troubles were taking place and, and all of a sudden a group of women organized a peace movement in northern ireland for both both catholics and protestants. and then the main message of the movement is we're tired of this. violence is not getting us anywhere. so let's try, let's do something different. i think there's that feeling i think is growing here

and i am hoping and praying that it, that it grows faster. busy because i think the way our of our current impasse is to start reconsidering some basic questions about the way we do business in, in this country in the u. s. and in the west, in general. so many of the problems that dividers are really valuable. if we would thinking more imaginatively about ways of forms of social reconstruction, you mentioned this conference up here, university is going to be hosting soon, and i'm sure it's not going to feature any russian experts, although i think the russians could bring you some very interesting perspective. on that, and i want to use this opportunity to quote one of the russian analysts who i thought had a very interesting analysis of the years, mid term campaigning. and he suggested that over the last couple of years and

what, what's been happening in the united states is essentially a match between here and fewer in the democrats are trying to milk the fear as much as they want. or is they can, the republicans are trying to ride on the fury and both a very strong, very potent emotions, but not very productive. they accelerate the dynamic, but they don't create anything lasting. and you mentioned that, you know, some of the, perhaps grass through the effort of reaching out to the other side. but do you think the american system, at this point of time, the electoral system will allow those initiatives those ras route good will initiatives to rise up to the to the upper echelons and make the politics in general, more cooperative and more productive for the society as a whole, well, i would have to say that they would re, course the elite will resist change because you know, that they, they're profiting from the current situation. but i think there is on, there is

a certain car, there are possibilities, at least our history, our history, also your history suggestion would be organized strongly on a local level when they get fed up enough. and when the new generation of leadership appears, there are change changes possible. so i'm hopeful, and when i talk to my students, want to see what the young people are doing. i see were, you know, or piece organizations, for example, in, in washington d. c. are doing and i'm seeing, i see, for example, the development of a stronger and stronger feeling that there ought to be negotiations. and that makes me hopeful that it can be, will be forced to listen. her. now are you and many other thinkers have commented on the proliferation of weapons in the united states over 400000000 guns in the,

in a country or 330000000 people. and i think it's one thing to only gone for self protection . it's quite another thing you pointed at another human being. we all have sort of building natural safeguards against that and people need most people only do that when i die. very sense of security, existential security is threatened. i wonder if the political divide at least the way you feel it, the way you sense it, because there is no way of i'm definitely answering to this question. do you think the political divide has reached such a proportions when people would so see that immediate survival with political issues? well, it's not, you know, it's not quite there yet. and this is, the movement is dangerous. you know, the direction of the in which things are going. busy is dangerous, it's people are, i don't, people are not, most people are not buying guns now because they're, they are getting ready to fight or civil war against, you know,

the left against the right or whatever. and there. but when they, when they buy guns, it, it very often indicates a complicated business. but one of the things that it indicates is a deep distrust. not even so much of the other party in the political conflict, but a deep distrust of authority and view as people in the, in the states where gun owning is most frequent and, and guns are a kind of secret issue. and you asked them why, why, why do you need, why do you think you need a gun? and clearly, you know, you don't need a military style automatic weapon to go hunting. so why are you buying these, these? these are automatic weapons, and they will tell you that they, they are afraid that the government is going to become tyrannical. it's in some

ways it seems total, it seems irrational and bizarre. but then of course, you realize that these are people who are feeling betrayed very often by government . these are people who are the promises made to them have not been delivered promises a prosperity and security and happy family lives. their children will do better than they will that will that balance. we have to even express those hopes. i think it is a very highly constrained i. i tested out as a, as a, as a journalist, the russian journalist with american education. but you cannot reach american audiences unless you subscribe to a certain point of view. i mean, i think they exit the level of censorship in the united states at this point of time is to radical. and i'm saying that as somebody who has a very good knowledge of russian propaganda and the censorship in this country,

but as much as i hated, we have to put an end to this conversation too because we exhausted our time. so i really, i'm really appreciative of your thoughts as your agreement to talk to us at this point of time and very happy to do it. thank you for asking and thank you for watching hope to share again next week on will depart and mm hm. mm. mm ah, what we've got to do is identify the threats that we have. it's crazy even foundation, let it be an arms race is on,

often very dramatic development only personally and getting to resist. i don't see how that strategy will be successful, very critical of time. time to sit down and talk with breaking youth out on the internet. at least 4 people are killed as a powerful blocks of crowded central, screwed up with you as president joe biden democratic party should clinic control of the senate office securing more seat this weekend in that of the midterm election. western policies are trying to weaponized the region that still wanting to asian and pacific countries from the russian foreign minister at the axiom summit. russell also.