Kal Raustiala 0:00

We're pleased to have two really fantastic experts on Russia and Russia's foreign policy with us today. I'm going to briefly introduce them, and then they will come on the screen. And as we usually do, we'll hear a brief remarks from each of our speakers, followed by a brief conversation with me and then questions from all of you. So please remember to post questions if you like using I think it's a q&a feature. You'll get an announcement about that shortly. We welcome your questions. We'll definitely get to those in the second half of the hour. But first, again, we're going to hear from both Kathryn Stoner and Dan Triesman. So let me briefly introduce them and then we'll start. So Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford, and a senior fellow at the Center on Democracy Development and Rule of Law as well as CSAC and many other places at Stanford, including political science, etc. She seems to hold or have many hats. Most importantly, for our purposes, Kathryn is a longtime Russia scholar and watcher and the author, most recently, of Russia Resurrected: Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order, which was just published this year in February. After Kathryn speaks, joining her on screen momentarily, is our own Dan Triesman of UCLA, professor of political science, research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. And as I discovered recently, Kathryn and Dan actually went through the same Ph. D. program. So they are longtime friends and colleagues. And Dan will follow Kathryn in the discussion. And as I said, we will then pivot to a conversation. So Kathryn, take it away.

Kathryn Stoner 1:45

Great, thank you so much for having me. Hi, UCLA, from all the way up from Northern California. It's a pleasure to be here this morning and in particular, to chat with you, Kal and also, Dan, about what's happening in the US Russia relationship as the Biden administration kicks off its Russia policy. So I think one of the questions since you asked us to speak for about seven minutes each at the beginning here and then and then have a conversation, my challenge is going to be making sure I stay within the seven minutes. So I will make just a few quick remarks. And then hopefully, we can go more deeply into some of these issues. But we have of course of a summit between Biden and Mr. Putin that now has been confirmed as of yesterday for June 16 in Geneva. And this comes at an interesting point in US Russian relations. I've been attending by the virtues of Zoom some of the webinars in Washington over the past six months to a year. And this is probably the only positive thing to come out of COVID is that you can move around quickly online. So it is a common lament in Washington currently, and I just attended a talk last week, where people are saying: "This is the worst moment since the collapse of the Soviet Union." But that seems to be updated or set every two to three years. You know, we said that on the back of Russia's war with Georgia in 2008: the worst moment. Then Ukraine in 2014, that was the worst moment. Then Russia's electoral interference in the American presidential elections in 2016, that was the worst moment. And then deepening sanctions on Russia, in the wake of Alexei Navalny's imprisonment and other events. And then Biden's "killer" remark just a month or two ago regarding Putin, more sanctions this year, now the diversion of a Lithuanian plane by Belarus to nab a leader of Lukashenko's opposition in Belarus, possibly with Russian help, clearly with with Russia's Okay, at least, and Russia even lightly now trying to defend Belarus's right to have done this over this past weekend. So, you know, is this the lowest point now since the collapse of communism, or of the Soviet Union in particular in 1991? And in 1991, relations were actually quite good. So I'm not sure that's a good reference point. It could actually be the lowest point in our relations if we go back into the Soviet period, since we boycotted the Moscow Olympics in 1980 over the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan. So maybe it's the lowest point in 40 years, or could we go lower? Evidently, we, you know, always can. I think it's the wrong question. And I don't know that it's particularly helpful to describe or characterize relations this way since we don't know what the lowest point is, of course. It could be war. But we're not there. And I don't think we're headed there. I'm somewhat optimistic actually, but where we might be moving with relations with Putin's Russia currently, and I want to distinguish between Russia and Putin's Russia, since I think Mr. Putin has led Russia on a rather distinctive and not inevitable path. So I suppose that's one difference I have right off the bat with some realist scholars who would say this is just a great power doing what great powers do and now it's recovered and so not surprisingly, it has become more assertive with respect to its structured geographic interests, which don't change. I think that's wrong. I think, of course, Russia has interests, and in my book I make this argument too. Russia, of course, has interests, every country has interests which can be geographically determined or, you know, culturally determined, or what have you. But, you know, those are not always fixed. They can change over time, of course, and different administrations, different leaders of countries will, of course, have different policy interests and how they act on those interests, even structured interests, can vary tremendously. And I think we've seen this even with Mr. Putin himself over the last 21 years that he's been in power in Russia, and in one capacity or another. So I think what I'm optimistic about is where we're moving with relations in terms of the commitment on both sides, it would seem, to moving toward predictability and stability in the relationship, but not necessarily comity and friendship and, you know, new areas of cooperation, although there are some potential areas where we could cooperate. So even if we don't view, here in the United States, Putin's administration in Russia as particularly friendly to the United States or to American interests, in the wake of the constitutional changes that were made in Russia last summer, he will be (if he chooses to be and those around him enable it) president of Russia until 2036. So we have to currently and for the foreseeable future (at least until potentially 2036) have to deal with Putin's Russia and Putin's foreign policy preferences. So there are signs that the Russians themselves, Mr. Lavrov, in his meetings with Blinken, last week, our new Secretary of State and other members of the Russian Foreign foreign policy establishment, and even 90 year old Mikhail Gorbachev, have said they too are looking for a new predictability and stability in the wake of the Trump administration where they thought things would be good and then things turned out sort of messy. The second thing I think that we are hearing out of Washington, which I would take issue with about the relationship is that we're not seeing another reset, that Mr. Biden is not going to fundamentally reset relations with Russia. And they're noting that every other US administration since Eisenhower has attempted some sort of reset of relations with the Soviet Union, or now Russia, and all have ultimately ended with a thud and worsening relations between the two. Biden himself, of course, denounced Obama's reset in 2009 in the Munich Security Conference, so it's not as though he's unfamiliar with the idea of doing this. Anyway, I think that they're wrong here, too. I think there is a resetting of the chessboard or of the relationship and that is toward predictability and stability, and to some degree acceptance of where we are in the world. And where we are now is in a multilateral, multipolar world, not not a unipolar world anymore. The United States stepped back in terms of its global footprint, even starting under the Obama administration, with our leading from behind policy, and Russia and China have have stepped in. And the Trump administration, I think even more with America First, made the US less relevant and important parts of the world. So so there is inevitably a reset because the situation has changed since Biden last held office. So how much is there a departure from what went before? Well, there are, as I mentioned, structural interest, fixed interests, and both countries have these to some degree, of course. Russia is a huge country, biggest in the world geographically, 14 international borders. So it affects a lot of countries, right? Different countries and different places. Actors have also changed. The American administration has changed. Russian administration has not changed in the sense that Putin obviously is still in charge but he has evolved from attempting to befriend George W. Bush in 2000 in the wake of 911, trying to cooperate with the United States on joint interests in terms of preventing terror globally, to opposing the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to, by 2009 when Medvedev was president and Putin was prime minister, tolerating closer cooperation with the United States on Afghanistan, establishing a northern distribution network for our men and women in the military and material going through Russia, into Central Asia to stage our troops in Afghanistan, signing the New START agreements in 2011 (we've just upped react to that for another five years, in February of this year), working together on the Iran nuclear deal, the so called JCPOA, which the Biden administration is now trying to reignite... Putin, you know, stepping in over the red line or the line in the sand, I guess, that Obama tried to establish in Syria over Assad's use of weapons of mass destruction and Putin stepping in and saying, "Wait, wait, I'll help get those out of Syria." But ending all of this ended this kind of cooperation when Mr. Putin returned to the presidency in 2012 and his domestic political situation changed. And what we've seen since is more assertive domestic policy, becoming more autocratic at home in Russia, and a more assertive Russian foreign policy. I think the other thing we've seen that's changed is the the tools with which Putin's hardening autocracy has used to pursue this more sort of revanchist and assertive foreign policy. He's got more plentiful tools, and they are ever more powerful, sharper. And I think that an increasingly unrestrained autocracy has enabled him to use those tools without really any serious checks on them. Both countries and their respective governments have a variety of power tools and resources that they can use in international politics, and I think this is what's different is that (not to refer too much to my own work or my new book) Russia has to some degree resurrected. And Dan, of course, wrote a book called "The Return" that looked at this too. I've got my my book is the ghost and says that there's also a big break from 2012 after Medvedev in particular leaves the presidency, and Putin comes back. So Russia has, you know, enhanced its geographic domain, where it operates, it has made some new relationships, reestablished relationships, an important one is China. It is particularly weighty in certain policy areas. And as long as the global energy resources are so dependent on oil and gas, Russia is one of the most weighty actors in those markets. And it's also a big arms dealer and has been selling arms, even to NATO members like Turkey, for example, but also to India, to China, places in Sub Saharan Africa, through the Middle East, even Saudi Arabia or friends there. And of course, it has reformed its military, and so has some of the more traditional means of power in a fighting form that it did not have when Joe Biden was last in office. Its economy is okay. It's not as bad as we sometimes like to think. It could be better, of course, and that is something that's very important to Putin's administration, because I think the most important thing to Mr. Putin's administration is stability at home, domestic stability. Society is increasingly under pressure in Russia, as I mentioned, a hardening autocracy increasingly willing and less restrained in using the power resources it has. And it now has new or enhanced sharp power resources in the cyber area, as we've seen, and it has a new ally, or at least a strategic partner, in China, which also has bad relations with the United States. So all of this is the new sort of table, I think, that that Biden is coming to. So just last few minutes, a minute or two here. What's the agenda as we look toward this upcoming summit between Biden and Putin? Well, Putin is obviously dealing with a rather different person in Joe Biden than he dealt with in Donald Trump. This is a guy who he has met before. They know one another. I don't think they particularly like one another. We can all remember about a month ago, Biden, of course, as I mentioned, calling Putin a killer. And Putin wishing Mr. Biden, perhaps ironically, sarcastically, good health. I think that was an allusion to his age, but also Putin's a killer. So, we're not going to have anything like the Helsinki fiasco between Trump and Putin, where Trump obsequiously tried to befriend Putin and they liked one another. Biden doesn't care whether, you know, it's not important to him whether Putin likes him. So he's not going to pursue a friendship, but I think it's going to be very pragmatic. And to be honest, we don't have many tools in the United States beyond what we're using already, which is sanctions (which are imprecise, but not completely ineffective) to curb Russia and Russia's new foreign policy. That said, we can't leave our values at the door, as I think Mr. Trump wanted to do. But our own internal politics have weakened the degree to which we can raise Russia's human rights or democratic lapses as well. That said, I'm sure that Mr. Biden will raise the issue of Alexei Navalny in his imprisonment and his treatment. I'm sure he will raise Protasevich, the Belarussian journalist who was just pulled from the sky, perhaps with Russia's help. Other things we should hope to accomplish. And I think basically, the policy will be to delink some of these issues where we want to cooperate with Russia. We'll separate out areas of conflict. Reinstatement of the Iran nuclear deal, Russia could be helpful here, they certainly have better relations with Iran, especially because they've cooperated to a great degree over the Syria conflict since 2015. Some form possibly of a cybersecurity accord to enhance transparency, maybe. There could be more nuclear arms control agreements on shorter and medium range weapons. Russia has developed a number of new weapons since 2008 and their new look military reform. We think some of those might work, actually. And the Arctic and climate change, where Russia is really a heavyweight in terms of policy and looking to access resources there. And then vaccines and coronavirus. But my expectations are not that great for this upcoming summit. Ukraine is the big issue and a harder issue. And, you know, Russia is obviously much more invested in Ukraine than we are. I don't know that we would go to war over Ukraine, I'm pretty sure we wouldn't. But Russia is sort of making moves towards reigniting a conflict there, especially if they leave all of the troops, they have about 80,000 troops, maybe fewer now, on the border with Ukraine, which apparently are now supposed to be for an exercise. I think expectations overall are pretty minimal for it. But the big reset here, again, is back to stability. And the policy will be to constrain Russia as best we can, cooperate where we must, and recognize that we're now in a three way competition with Russia and China, who for the moment are cooperating with one another, and not with us in most areas. So the reset is the policy of stability, predictability, back to deterrence of Russia as best we can, while acknowledging that there are some areas where cooperation could be useful, but not indispensable. So with that, I'm turning things over to Dan. I'll mute myself.

Daniel Treisman 19:10

Hi, well, thanks. Thanks for inviting me to participate in this. It's a new administration. And that's a good time to take stock. So let me say a few words about what I think is the view from Moscow and then what what's the view from Washington. And you'll see I'll take a slightly different line than Kathryn. I agree with a lot of what she said but as you'll see, I'm a bit less optimistic. So at home, Putin faces a pretty dreary reality. Russia is coming out of the coronavirus. They may get a temporary economic boost, but underneath there's chronic stagnation in the economy. Real incomes of Russians were 11% lower in 2020 than in 2013. Euphoria over Crimea has long gone. Putin's ratings have stabilized in the low 60s, they're about 65% approving of his performance at the moment. That might sound quite high, but actually, it's not far above Putin's all time low since he's been in power since 2000. And in that 65%, there's not much enthusiasm. When asked what they like about Putin, only 3% mentioned honesty or decency. People don't have a lot of hope that things are gonna get better. And as Kathryn mentioned, discontent is being policed with an ever heavier hand. Now, if we look abroad, we see Russia's active all over the place. In Syria, still propping up Assad; in Ukraine, they've been beefing up the forces in Crimea. Putin continues to back the brutal insurgency in Donbass, they recently rushed 100,000 troops to the border. It's not clear if they were planning something and then changed their mind or if the point was just to intimidate. On Russia's northern border (Kathryn mentioned the Arctic)... well, they're militarizing it. They're doing up there something like what Xi Jinping is trying to do in the South China Sea. Keep asserting rights over international waters until they become accepted. And plenty of saber rattling. Recently, Putin said that "Everybody wants to bite us somewhere." And he warned potential buyers that "we will knock their teeth out so that they cannot bite." Meanwhile, Russia's desperately trying to be useful to China as a fuel provider, not just oil and gas, but now nuclear reactors. In fact, Russia has been using its atomic energy industry to spread influence around the world in many countries. That's just the more or less official business and foreign affairs. Then there's the cloak and dagger stuff. Russian mercenaries, loosely coordinating with the defense ministry are active in Libya, the Central African Republic, Mozambique, other African countries. And then there were the intelligence agents. We've seen a pretty amazing level of activity by the GRU, running aggressive operations across Europe, trying to overthrow the government of Montenegro poisoning the Skripals in Britain and an arms dealer in Bulgaria, assassinating Chechen emigres in Berlin, Vienna, France, Turkey, blowing up an arms Depo in the Czech Republic, hacking the Bundestag, hacking Emmanuel Macron's presidential campaign, hacking the DNC, hacking the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in The Hague, sheltering the hackers who took down a US oil pipeline very recently, very possibly paying bounties to Taliban killers for hits on US troops in Afghanistan, very possibly using microwave weapons to sicken US diplomats. The scale of this malign activity is really remarkable. What lies behind this? I think Putin believes that conflict with the West is unavoidable. We are out to get him. And his best defense is a kind of covert offense: expand influence, exploit weaknesses, create problems, and use all tools available, create new ones. So switching now to the view from Washington, as I see it, Biden's line is that we want, as Kathryn said, a predictable, stable relationship with Russia but we'll continue to speak out against Russian misbehavior. This two punch strategy was illustrated by Biden first calling Putin a killer, and then inviting him to a summit. We've made clear that our priority is China. "We don't want to be distracted by Russia or the Middle East for that matter. So please keep things predictable and stable." Essentially, we're asking Putin to pipe down for the next few years until we get this China thing under control. The administration has made a serious start at rebuilding relations with Europe, which is great. So that's the current strategy as I interpret it. It may be the best available, but there are some dangers. First, let's be realistic: the last thing that Putin wants to give us is a predictable, stable relationship. He's going to try and make it unpredictable and unstable to keep us distracted so the West can't unite around policies to constrain him. There are certain areas where maybe we can compartmentalize. Both sides seem pretty interested in nuclear arms control, possibly rules over military cyber attacks, possibly even Iran and North Korea. But beyond that, I think we can pretty much give up on predictability and stability. And Putin's now going to be exploring just how much we're willing to pay for a promise to make things a little bit more stable. He's going to repeatedly rock the boat to see how much we'll pay him to stop. I guess we do have to set priorities, but saying publicly that China's the real priority empowers both Putin and Xi Jinping. Putin can exploit the fact that we don't want Russian distractions. Xi will exploit the fact that Biden has committed his prestige to getting some results, vis-a-vis Beijing. We've been here before many times. Remember Obama's pivot to Asia? Not the greatest success. This idea that you can just decide to focus on one part of the world and announce that... that's not really how it works. So there's going to be a summit in Geneva. Of course, it's always good to talk. But there are phones, there's Zoom, there are pseudo impromptu side meetings at multilateral events. A summit is valuable to Putin at this point, because it shows Russian TV viewers that he's respected, he's not isolated. It also gives him a stage to act tough for all those watching at home. So why exactly are we doing this now? Usually, we don't do summits with adversaries unless there are deliverables. Have deliverables being promised. Not that I know of. There's an unfortunate impression that Biden offered a summit to soften the fact that he called Putin a killer, making up for a verbal gaffe. Now at the summit, Biden will have to work pretty hard to avoid the impression that he softened his positions on Russia. Of course, Biden will want the meeting to look civil, not friendly, necessarily, but at least civil. But a positive summit, a friendly summit, will be taken by some as a sign that Biden's okay with the imprisonment of Navalny, the completion of the Nord Stream Two pipeline and the outrageous behavior of the GRU around the world. Of course, he's not okay with that. But he'll have to speak out forcefully and publicly on these issues, and avoid smiling too much to resist the impression that he's gone wobbly. One thing the Biden administration is doing right is working to rebuild a common front with NATO allies and the EU. That's really the only hope for an effective policy against both China and Russia. But it's hard because there are so many actors who have an interest in doing deals on the side. The danger here is that you end up forging this powerful coalition by compromising on all the policies that you need this powerful coalition to pursue. The Nord Stream Two pipeline is close to completion, it'll go from from Russia to Germany. If completed, it will increase Europe's dependence on Russian gas, while at the same time weakening Poland and Ukraine by bypassing them. It's inconsistent with the EU's energy strategy. It was a bad idea in 2015, when it was begun. This was just a year after Russia seized Crimea and set off a civil war in Donbass. And at that point, European business thought it was a good moment to build a pipeline with Russia. It was a bad idea then, and it's still a bad idea. Anthony Blinken has said as much. But to avoid a clash with Angela Merkel, the White House waved sanctions on the Nord Stream Two company and the Putin crony who heads it. The pipeline's a huge victory for Moscow and a few European firms at the expense of European energy security, at the expense of Ukraine security, and also at the expense of the environment. It's possible that the real Biden plan is to quietly delayed completion of the pipeline until after September, when we may see a coalition in Germany involving the Greens, who were determined to ban the pipeline. So maybe that's the real goal, to quietly kick this down the road until the Greens are part of the government.

Kal Raustiala 29:54

Dan, I think we've lost your connection. Are you...

Kathryn Stoner 29:59

Yes, Kal I was just saying let's turn it over to you at this point, I've okay probably said enough.

Kal Raustiala 30:04

Perfect. Okay, there was a bit of a glitch at the end, but I think we're fine. So, first of all two very, very interesting overviews of a very complex situation. So I thought maybe we could start with just a couple of bigger picture issues and we'll sort of drill down on a few others. So I guess one thing, just listening to the both of you, I was struck by the notion and I think I've heard others say this, but I just want to hear your reactions... Is Putin's fundamental realm, let me speak of Russia, perhaps, Russia's fundamental interests in the near term globally... can it be characterized as primarily instability? In other words, what Russia benefits from most is a disordered world? That's the either of you, or both.

Kathryn Stoner 30:55

I'm happy to take a stab at it. Kal, yes, I think at the moment, because Putin has, of course, there's a lot of interpretation, so Kathryn may have very different interpretation. But because I think Putin has given up on any meaningful partnership with the West, and because he has a quite cynical view of international politics, and how the world works and because he has, despite all these energy resources and other powers that might look impressive from outside, despite that, the fact that he's quite weak and domestically vulnerable, means that yes, he will try to protect himself by creating instability, by distracting, by driving wedges between West and partners, and just trying to prevent, in all the ways that he can, any kind of unified front of the West to limit his options, to constrain him, and to put pressure on him politically. Because I think he believes that that definitely the US, and more broadly many in the West, would like to see a new political regime in Russia and have been covertly working towards this for some years.

Yeah, I would say that's right. In my book, actually, some of the things Dan went through there are chapter four. But.. or chapter three, sorry, in terms of where Russia's influence has, you know, its influence has grown and where it's active. I would call it a disruptive power. I mean, that is its sort of power, in disruption, right? So look at how it sort of exacerbated the conflicts within American society through these sharp power or cyber means. It's done the same kind of thing in Europe, right? It's also disrupted relations, or what we what we had historically had a strong relations, in the Middle East by dealing bilaterally with countries that are traditional enemies of one another. So you know, it actually has decent relations with Saudi Arabia and some relations with Iran, with Israel as well with, you know, with the United Arab Emirates. So who's, you know, investing in, in the Russian economy, which, yeah, that I mean, in terms of macro economics, things are not that bad, it doesn't have that high debt. You know, inflation hasn't gone skyrocketing. But, you know, longer term, the fundamentals aren't good. I think I would agree with Dan in terms of how we think Mr. Putin might see the world. But one of the things I think, too, is that is that he doesn't think long term, right? So his time horizons are pretty short. And there is a real concern, clearly with domestic stability. So NATO expansion is not what's going to bring down, you know, his regime; what could bring down his regime is domestic instability. And so I think this is why Alexei Navalny is such an issue for him. Can we say one thing about why this summit is happening?

Kal Raustiala 34:08

Yeah, that would be great.

Kathryn Stoner 34:09

Okay. I agree with Dan, that it is hard to see where we're going to come out with a win here and what the deliverables are, aside from just talking. So it does make me wonder whether one of the things that Biden wants to do is deliver messages to Putin directly, that he doesn't want to go through an intermediary and one of them is, you know, attack us in terms of cyber anymore and we will do the following to you. And so really try to set up a deterrence policy and getting the messaging very clear. Otherwise, I would agree, it looks like we could be handing Putin a big foreign policy in terms of his domestic politics, and why exactly we are doing that is the question.

Kal Raustiala 34:58

Yeah, I thought the same thing. I think that's Really interesting issue and maybe we'll circle back to that in some of the q&a. I'm also curious. So China came up, incidentally, in your remarks. You know, looking at this as someone who's not a Russia expert, one of the things that's striking is on the one hand, Russia is obviously a militarily formidable country. On the other hand, you know, although its economy may be, you know, recovering or forgetting the word I think Kathryn used, recovered or resurgent, you know, it's half the size of California. It's basically Southern California. It's tiny, tiny place.

Kathryn Stoner 35:32

Yeah, it's the sixth largest. I think it's the sixth largest in the world, but it...

Kal Raustiala 35:36

Compared to great power competitors, tiny.

Kathryn Stoner 35:39

Oh, sure. 3% of global GDP. Yeah.

Kal Raustiala 35:42

So yes, obviously, in a kind of general sense. It's a big country. But if you're saying US, China, and Russia, there's an odd man out in that trio. And so that's sort of a striking fact that Russia can't really escape. And moreover, it seems like and I think you've both supported this, that you'd agree that Russia is economically sound, it's based on 20th century fossil fuel technologies, which may or may not prove resurgent over the next couple of decades. We'll see. You know, that's obviously a huge question, but we can imagine a world in which renewables and other things, which Russia may be good at, but it's traditional things won't be as good. So I guess I'm curious about how China fits into all of this, given the amazing difference in China's position over the last 30 years vis-a-vis Russia. So how much of the story of Russia's current power or ability to disrupt is dependent on having a friendly country... I wouldn't say they're allies, because I don't really think they are, but I'd be curious if you think they are. But does China support or wingman activity? Help Russia do what it wants to do?

Kathryn Stoner 36:50

I think it's more of a more than a wingman. But okay, so can I take the GDP question? Kal, I'm gonna send you the PDF of my book because there are different ways of thinking of Russia as an actor in the world, right? So yes, absolutely. If you look at its GDP and compare it to the US or to China, or even to India, it looks small. It is about the same as the UK. Or I'm Canadian, so I'll say Canada's. It's about like, 65. I forget exactly what it is at the moment. But it looks small, relative to the other two "great powers." All right. But I would say don't look just to GDP in terms of a measure of Russia's importance, economically, globally, because that's what you're getting at, right, is that this is not a huge economy, not huge market, and it's not a huge supplier and China is, and the US is. Where does Russia matter is what I would suggest you should look at instead. And for now, 80% of global energy comes from fossil fuels. You know, only 3% of us, because we're in California here, we thinking electric cars are so great. I went to visit my daughter in New Orleans, she's a student at Tulane. They don't have a lot of electric cars, even in New Orleans, right? So I mean, don't forget we're still in a bubble here. So 80% of the world's energy still coming from fossil fuels. And that's natural gas and oil. Well, who's one of the world's two largest exporters of both of those things? Russia, right? So it's a particularly weighty actor in a particularly important sector of the global economy. Now, granted, you go into Target, you're not going to find a lot of things that say made in Russia, you're gonna find a lot of things that that say made in China, made in Taiwan. Russia doesn't sell consumer goods. They sell as Dan said, nuclear power plants. They sell them to China, they've sold 12 of them there. They sell them to India, they sell them across Sub Saharan Africa. They sell weapons. So the world's second largest purveyor of weapons (we are number one). What do they sell, they sell S300 anti ballistic missile systems, S400s, these are expensive, and they come with a chain of maintenance contracts. And that means Russian engineers on the ground. Who are two of their largest customers? Well they have big customers in the Middle East and in Africa. Two of their largest customers are actually China and India. So the dependency... you don't think of Russia's economy just in terms of GDP. In terms of weightiness in certain policy areas, it's really quite important. And China has, you know, a huge need, obviously, still for energy. Now, in the long run, we can all say yes, that's not a stable way for Russia's economy to grow. That's true. But it all depends on us fundamentally changing our behavior and getting off oil and gas as our main sources of energy. And right now there isn't a huge... I mean, we're trying to do that, but we haven't done it yet. And as I mentioned, I point back to short time horizons on Putin's part. The other thing is Russia has slightly started to diversify its economy. I don't want to overstate it. They now are the world's biggest exporter of grain, for example, they export pharmaceuticals as well. So I'm going to stop there and let Dan comment.

Sure. So on relations with China, I think Putin would very much like to be seen as a major partner of China's. He wants the moral support of China in opposing the US and the West, and he would like more economic support from from China. At the moment, it's a kind of a one sided relationship, as has been pointed out it. The Russian economy is very small compared to either China's or the US. The big competition is between the US and China. And, of course, that's irritating to Putin. But it's a fact. So what can they do, they can sell gas, oil and nuclear power plants to China, as Kathryn said. But China has a lot of power over the terms. And they have conflicting interests in Central Asia, there are other energy suppliers from Central Asia which China can also turn to to improve the bargains with Russia. So both I think Xi and Putin like to pretend that they're great friends, that they're on the same page, and that they're working together. In fact, the relationship isn't that close. It's opportunistic. And it's more in my view, working to the advantage of China than working to the advantage of Russia. At the same time, Putin has to face the distinct possibility that demand for gas from Europe is going to decrease substantially. And in that case, that makes him even more and more dependent on China for those energy sales which, again, reduces leverage.

Kal Raustiala 42:12

Terrific, thank you both. So there's a lot of questions in the q&a. And so we have about 15 minutes, I'm going to pivot to those. And so why don't we start? There's a number of different things that we could begin with, but one of the questions, asks whether Putin's concept of Russia's geopolitical interests represents a sort of continuum of expansion, going back to, you know, Peter the Great, Stalin, etc. In other words, is this just a normal Russian behavior over centuries? Or is there something distinctly Putin-esque about what we're seeing today? And if so, what would that be? So I'm sort of embroidering the question a bit, but what's what's uniquely Putin and what's just basic Russian, what Kenan might have written?

Kathryn Stoner 43:00

Yeah, do you wanna go first on that one, Dan?

Sure. Well, it might sign sound strange given that I started by pointing out all the aggressive international actions that we've been seeing. But I mean, first of all, I don't think these historical these long term historical, deterministic arguments tell us very much because countries can always go down different paths, there's always some choice. But if we look at Putin and expansion, he's been extremely cautious. He only really started quite late into his time in power. So there was Georgia, which I think was actually provoked by the Georgian side, although clearly the Russian side was quite eager to respond. And then you get Crimea in 2014, a lot of troublemaking at the borders, an attempt to influence the former Soviet republics. But if he had really been a traditional Russian expansionist, I think we would have seen a lot more of this much earlier on. Rather I think what we've seen is a progression, and Kathryn mentioned this, a progression in Putin's attitude towards international affairs. And I would say this growing belief that opportunities for cooperating with the West just don't exist, except on very small, compartmentalized cases. So, you know, if you were an expansionist, I think we'd have seen actual events in the Baltics, possibly with regard to Kazakhstan, and at many of the borders at moments of weakness among neighbors, but in fact, it's it's taken a very long time, and he clearly prefers when possible to use all the instruments of security service activity rather than military invasion. And that's in part because the world has changed. Even if Putin wanted to expand in the manner of Peter the Great or Catherine the Great, obviously, we're living in a completely different world.

Can I come in on that one to Kal? Or do you want to move on?

Kal Raustiala 45:30

It's up to you, if you want to, you don't have to both feel you need to answer each question once. If you'd like, please go ahead.

Kathryn Stoner 45:37

Sure. So I would just say I don't think these historically deterministic arguments get us very far in terms of tradition, and I do think there has been a progression in Putin's thinking, partly in response to what he perceives happened with US policy and a lack of cooperation, but also in response to his own domestic politics. And there have been ways in which, you know, his foreign policy has helped him domestically in terms of raising his own approval ratings. That said, I think we can run a counterfactual, right? Would any leader behave the same way as Vladimir Putin when faced with the same, you know, policies from the United States? And I think the answer is no, they wouldn't. There's not an inevitability to conflict. Competition is different from conflict. And, you know, we did see differences with Medvedev, we saw differences with early Putin, for that matter. We saw Mikhail Gorbachev, we saw Boris Yeltsin. So I do think there's something about hardening autocracy more aggressive foreign policy. And this idea of being kind of under siege is a useful narrative domestically for him as well.

Kal Raustiala 46:58

Great, thank you. So next question is, is there a reason why Putin does not think long term? It seems a little odd considering how his power is so deeply entrenched, so the chances of him being voted out are slim. But I guess maybe I would add to that question, the contrast that we often hear is allegedly, Xi Jinping is such a long term thinker or the Chinese are thinking on a decades or centuries long scale. I'm not gonna say whether that's really accurate or not. But that's that's a common statement about Chinese foreign policy, but you both sort of stressed short termism in Putin's thinking. So maybe elaborate on why that that contrast exists?

Kathryn Stoner 47:39

Well, one reason is that this is not a very democratic regime. In fact, you have greater long term security in a democracy with established institutions, you can look to the future, than in an autocracy, where basically every day is a new day and because there isn't a moment when you will be stepping down or will be undergoing a genuine electoral contest. If you're going to be overthrown, it could come at any time. So I think although he looks very secure, mafia bosses often look very secure. The ones that last for a long time, it's not because they're thinking strategically in long term necessarily, it's because they're very good at the day to day identifying threats and resolving the problem. And I think that's his view of the world. I mean, not that I can provide you with any very strong evidence. But if you look at what he said, over the last 20 years, how he talks about things, and put that together with what he's done, you form an impression of somebody who's looking at the world as a million things going on simultaneously, it's very difficult to predict, beyond, you know, a very short timescale. And you see a great desire to keep his options open so that he can respond tactically. Now what we see if we look at other authoritarian regimes, historically, is that that many of them (I did a study of this) many of them and because of mistakes by the incumbent in unforeseen circumstances. So, you know, whatever the brilliance of the plans you may have created, whatever pseudo democratic institutions you've established (and those may help, to some extent), you're still vulnerable to just unexpected circumstances that provoke you into making mistakes, which then snowball and lead to the end of the regime. So I think he has a realistic view of the world as not something that one can control. And lacking a kind of institutionalized political system, which everybody believes will constrain things going forward, there's no reason to think that you can plan, you know, 10 years ahead.

It's very typical of a personalistic autocracy, which is what it's become. It wasn't always that. But yeah, I would completely agree, underinstitutionalization and lack of regular process makes you vulnerable to some kind of exogenous shock, or, you know, event, or elite overthrow even. So this is one reason why he cares so much about public opinion, which is kind of odd in an autocracy, you might think, right, but it's a resource for him in the system in which he works. It keeps other elites at bay when he has such high approval rating. So that's all I would add.

Kal Raustiala 50:53

It makes a lot of sense. I mean, one of the reasons in China that after Mao's disastrous reign that the system was changed to disallow long term rule, and now it's being changed back was precisely that. So certainly makes a lot of sense. So next audience question: What is the role that Europe does or should play in keeping Russia's ambitions at bay?

Kathryn Stoner 51:13

Can't play, any I would say, I mean, that's one thing that has changed. I would say Russia is the preeminent power now in Europe. And, you know, European Union strength is in its unity, its weakness is in its unity, the requirement for unity, right? And so Russia has worked quite hard to try and split that up with some success. I mean, a lot of resentment over Germany and Nord Stream Two. And, you know, the Europeans have kept the sanctions on Russia, which was a surprise. But that's always a worry, I think, every time they come up for renewal. Probably Germany has the most leverage over Russia, but with Angela Merkel leaving power soon, she had at least some sort of personal relationship, also to the extent that that matters with Putin. So I don't think there's a ton of leverage there anymore, especially given the this stance that the Nord Stream Two pipeline will be completed and this makes Germany at least even more, (and arguably other parts of Europe but in particular, Germany) even more dependent on Russia, at least for now, right? At least for now.

Kal Raustiala 52:24

Can I just ask Kathryn, do you think that was a mistake? Nord Stream Two.

Kathryn Stoner 52:29

From what perspective? From Germany's perspective, it's not. From Russia's perspective, it's not. I think we wish it hadn't. But you know, what would Germany... what were the options? Natural gas is not easy to move, right? It comes out of the ground as gas, then you have to liquefy it, to put it through the pipelines, and then you have to make it gas again when it arrives. So only some countries can do that, and it's, you know, much harder to move than oil. So there's Russia sitting there with with a lot of natural gas, what are the options? And if you're committed as Germany is to not using nuclear power, right? They decided that after Fukushima Daiichi in Japan, then what are you going to do? Well, oil they've decided is too dirty. It's very dirty. Coal? Dirty. So what's the option? Natural gas. Who's got a lot of it sitting right there, cheaply? Russia. Who's got the technology to liquefy it, and turn it back into a gas? Russia. So what were the options, exactly? The United States was not moving it over, you know, we don't have that capacity yet. So good or bad, I mean, it's unfortunate from a strategic point of view. But what was the option?

I would disagree a little bit with that. I mean, I think there were options. Merkel decided that she was going to overnight shut down the nuclear sector. Was that really necessary? Was that environmentally progressive? And there are other pipelines. So to build this new pipeline? I'm not sure that that was the only option. But I'd say more generally, I totally agree with Kathryn that what Europe could do to defend against Russia would require them to unite a bit more. They need to rewrite the rules of the EU. They need to, first of all, start contributing more to NATO and organizing NATO, the European NATO countries, to create a better deterrent against Russia around Russia's borders. They need to cut the sleaze. I mean, this has gotten much worse in the last 20 years. Former politicians there's three Austrian high level former politicians who have recently served on the boards of Gazprom and Rosneft

Gerhard Schroeder?

Daniel Treisman 55:08

Schroeder, he started early. But since then, you know, three Austrians, Germans lobbyists for Russia. There should be regulations about lobbying on behalf of a foreign state. I personally think that it should be, you know, we don't really need that, that could be banned at this point. And so many enablers in the West who have basically helped to incapacitate the European Union and its relations with with Russia and more generally, to weaken Western policy. I think there is a lot we could do and a lot that Europeans could do. It requires monitoring, much better monitoring. It requires, frankly, improvement of the security services. It's really just amazing that bellingcat and other investigative journalists and open source investigators can come up with all this information, some of which apparently the security services didn't have, or at least they didn't seem to be acting on them. So I think there's a lot of things we can do in terms of what the Europeans can do in terms of legal reforms, constitutional reforms within the EU, new regulations and just much more active monitoring of the many contacts. I'm not saying we should reduce contacts with Russia, but we need to monitor what's going on. And we need to enforce anti-corruption legislation much better.

Kathryn Stoner 56:40

They should do all of those things. The problem is they can't get it together to do anything.

Well, I think maybe they will a bit more. But if they can't get it together, it's because of people like Merkel, who were signing these deals over Nord Stream Two and who were just not making it a priority. I think if different leaders... we talked about the importance of individuals, I think if there had been different leaders in Britain, France and Germany, in the last 10 years, they might have chosen to do a bit more.

Kal Raustiala 57:13

Kathryn, any last words? We're almost out of time.

Kathryn Stoner 57:16

No, I would generally agree with that. But I do think that that, you know, Putin's Russia has been able to also exploit, you know, this structural requirement of unanimity with the European Union, as well, and then also tried to sort of finance right wing populism throughout Europe, where they found it, which is sort of a new tool that they're willing to use, to, to some effect, you know, it'd be hard to know exactly. But anyway, I think, you know, we're not going to have warm, fuzzy relations with Russia anytime soon. And I think the best we can hope for is some sort of predictability and stability, which is in our interests, sometimes in Russia's interests. But, right, I think their power is in disruption. Andthat will be the sort of longer term strategy.

Kal Raustiala 58:10

Great. Well, thank you so much, Kathryn, for coming on. And Dan, of course, as well. It's been a terrific discussion. I want to plug Kathryhn's book again, "Russia Resurrected," I am apparently getting a PDF and I'm eager for it. For the rest of you. I recommend going out I'm sure it's on Amazon and everywhere.

Kathryn Stoner 58:26

It is on Amazon in Kindle and hardcopy.

Kal Raustiala 58:28

Perfect. So thank you both for a discussion that I am positive we will circle back to in the years to come. So thank you, everyone. Have a great rest of your day.

Kathryn Stoner 58:39

Thank you very much for having me.