finally, stephen cohen is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at brookings institution. he is the co-author on books are in the american involvement in south asia and a volume entitled "the idea of pakistan."

you are on with stephen cohen.caller: i would like to ask a question speaking of the issue -- history of russia. hasn't it always tried to play a dominant role in asia and europe because it cuts the two continents and they want to influence specifically: because they resent the idea of expanding nato into poland? guest: i separate the poland issue but it is rather recent. but you are absolutely right about the other. russia calls itself a eurasian country, it sets both in europe and in asia. even after the breakup of the soviet union, russia is the largest territorial country in the world. what this has created in the political class is a division. one group of very important russian political -- members of the russian political eat the leaves russia belongs with the east or at least not with the west. some placed between west and east. another group of russians believe that the feature has to deal -- do with the west. that would include democracies and the traditions we value. therefore, the way we treat russia ti

. >> rose: we continue our analysis with stephen cohen of new york university, a russian scholar, chrystia freeland of the "financial times", claire shipman of abc news and thomas pickering, the leading american diplomat and former u.s. ambassador to russia and undersecretary of state for political affairs. >> we expanded nato, we left the a.b.m. treaty, russia helped us win the ground war in afghanistan more than any other country in 2001 and 2002 and we gave them nothing, we just expanded nato and withdrew from the treaty and the political class looked at him and said "fool. weakling. we look like pushovers, we give; they take." that's why... that's the real issue of what happened and is happening in moscow. >> i think the big choice for russia still is the choice that it faced in '89, '91, '96, 2000, which is between democracy and pluralism and authoritarianism. and i absolutely do not see how appeasing, placating this sort of neo-imperialistic mood which putin has been very consciously building up in any way plays to the positive sides of russia. >> there's been a misreading for almost

finally, stephen cohen is a senior fellow in foreign policy studies at brookings institution. he is the co-author on books are in the american involvement in south asia and a volume entitled "the idea of pakistan." he was a member of the policy planning staff at the state department. he will no doubt in gauges on policy issues. -- engage us on policy issues. >> thank you for coming. the survey was conducted over may 17 thru may 28. there were 1000 pakistani adults nationwide responding. interviews were conducted at home, in randomly-selected urban and rural points in all four provinces. let me quickly add that 5% of the population of the country -- we over-sampled and weighted the results back down so they would be proportional to the rest of the country. the margin of error is plus or minus 3.2%. these are the topics i will cover, which are already run through for you. the war in afghanistan, attitudes to president obama and the u.s., al-qaeda. so, a major shift has taken place in pakistan, the perceptions of religious and military groups in their country. 81% now see the act

on the independent line for stephen cohen in new york. caller: i have been in korea, and they are very paranoid and combative type of people. i would bet money that the chinese are sort of on the scared side of career because no one really knows what they are going to do because everything is so secretive. my question is do you think that it is possible that under the table that the united states and russia will get together and try to assist the chinese and trying to calm down the north koreans and the something to deal with them? guest: we sort of discussed that before. it makes sense to me -- i do not know if it is doable. but as we like to say, it is worth a try. host: what else are you looking for in the visit and the coming months ahead? guest: atmospherically, so far the summit has been fine. the two presidents help each other a bit. both are young, both are new, relatively weak within their own political systems. they helped each other a bit. they came away looking statesmanlike. most of what they agreed abroad, we knew they were