Claudia Rosett joins the podcast to discuss this month’s policy focus: Russia’s War and America’s Follies. We dissect the immediate crisis in Ukraine, the history of Russia and how we got here, the man behind it all — Vladimir Putin — and what the U.S. should do.
Claudia Rosett is a foreign policy fellow with the Independent Women’s Forum, and an award-winning journalist who has reported over the past 37 years from Asia, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, and the Middle East. She is widely credited with groundbreaking reporting on corruption at the United Nations, and she is the former Wall Street Journal Moscow bureau chief.
TRANSCRIPT
Beverly Hallberg:
And welcome to She Thinks, a podcast where you’re allowed to think for yourself. I’m your host, Beverly Hallberg, and on today’s episode, we have this month’s IWF Policy Focus, entitled “Russia’s Threat and America’s Follies.” We’ll dissect the immediate crisis in Ukraine, the history of Russia and what got us today, the man behind it all, Vladimir Putin, and what it all means for the United States. And we have a wonderful guest, the author of the policy focus, joining us today, Claudia Rosett. Claudia Rosett is a foreign policy fellow with IWF and an award-winning journalist, who’s reported over the past 37 years from Asia, the former Soviet Union, Latin America, and the Middle East. She is widely credited with groundbreaking reporting on corruption at the UN and she is the former Wall Street Journal Moscow Bureau Chief. Claudia, it is a pleasure to have you on She Thinks today.
Claudia Rosett:
Beverly, it’s a pleasure to be here.
Beverly Hallberg:
And what a timely policy focus. I want to let all our listeners know we are recording this at noon on Thursday, Eastern Time. So, what we know to this point, is that Vladimir Putin’s Russia has attacked Eastern Ukraine. What do you make of this all? Let’s just start there.
Claudia Rosett:
Well, it’s all moving so fast by now, that we’ve actually updated the title of the policy focus that’s about to come out. It’s now, not Russia’s Threat, but “Russia’s War and America’s Follies.” And Vladimir Putin has sent his massive invasion force into what looks like all of Ukraine. They’ve been moving up the coast from the South, from Crimea. They’ve been fighting in Odessa, attacking Odessa. They’ve been carrying out strikes in Western Ukraine, which is not far from Poland, NATO, and so on. And they opened the whole thing with strikes on major cities, including the capital of Kiev. So, this is a war, this is a full-bore invasion. It’s not an incursion as President Biden invited him to do, some months ago.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah, it is definitely a full-scale invasion, as you just said. And so many policy analysts predicted that Russia would attack. Did you think it would be to this extent, and what can we expect in the next few days and the next weeks to come?
Claudia Rosett:
I did think it would be to this extent. What I didn’t know, what was hard to predict, was whether he would do it this time, or Putin walks up to these things, bullies, gets what he can, cashes in. He did that last spring with Ukraine when he began massing troops and celebrated what he said, sort of cast us a diplomatic victory, because Putin did not go ahead. I remember then, Biden rewarded Putin, dignified him with a summit in Geneva last June. This time it did look like he’d put enough in there, so he was likely to. The question was when. And now, he’s committed to something where I don’t know exactly what he plans to do precisely in this campaign, but I’ve actually seen, on a lesser scale, this is not so different from the way Russia went into the breakaway Republic of Chechnya in 1994.
Take out the air defenses, move in with massive force. And the difference being that this isn’t it from the Soviet Union in 1991. It is a sovereign state, and it is now facing, not fading Boris Yeltsin, with the decrepit post-Soviet military, but a messianic driven Vladimir Putin, with a modernizing military, enormous strike capabilities, experience in this kind…. Remember, they went into Crimea in 2014. They attempted to invade Georgia in 2008, and he’s had years to plan this, Bev. I think he’s been many steps ahead of the people in Washington, who take a day to produce a response.
Beverly Hallberg:
Let’s talk about what that response has been. It seems that there has been more —
Claudia Rosett:
Yeah.
Beverly Hallberg:
Forceful rhetoric from, let’s say the UK, you have Boris Johnson there, who’s come out with some strong wording today, that’s Thursday that we are recording this. What do you make of the rhetoric from President Biden, understanding that the American people don’t have an appetite for us to go to war? But do the American people expect their leader, their president, to talk tough and to promote freedom and democracy against this authoritative individual who seems to want to take over so many free people?
Claudia Rosett:
Well, war is a terrible thing. It’s a thing to be avoided, if at all possible. President Biden has actually been putting us at greater risk of having to fight one, whether we want to or not, in a whole series of policies here. And we’ve heard a lot of talk. There’s been a huge frenzy of diplomacy now, for weeks, in Brussels, in Munich, in Geneva, all over the place. The wordings of Europe, going to Moscow to petition Putin in the Kremlin. None of it, evidently, has deterred him, nor did it look like it was going to, because it’s talk and sanctions, where Putin has a lot of experience in getting around sanctions. He’s adept at that. He’s partnering with China, which is also…. These are the two world masters of getting around sanctions. Between them, they have quite a number of deals they can make, and I suspect they did when Putin went to Beijing for the opening of the Olympics at the beginning of this month.
This whole thing has been bracketed by Putin, the Olympics and Xi Jinping who, as we speak, has been flying war planes to threaten Taiwan. We may have the making of quite a dust up here. Again, I don’t know the sequencing or the timing, but this is a time of real peril. And what we’re seeing again from Washington is, “Okay, more sanctions.” That’s bringing somewhat amorphous, evadable measures to a gun fight. And at this point, that’s not going to stop this invasion. There are things that President Biden could do that would genuinely help.
He could open up the U.S. Energy Industry again. Remember, he came into office, and one of the first things he did was he killed the Keystone pipeline. And he’s made it very hard. He’s basically reversed the energy independence we had achieved, then gone running around. Then, he waved ahead the finishing of the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline to Germany. Remember, that’s a pipeline that adds to what they’re already buying from Russia. They already have a Russian gas pipeline that’s working as we speak, has been there for years. So, this was an additional pipeline to bring more gas. President Biden basically said fine to that. That was a green light to Putin.
And then, the mother of all green lights was Afghanistan in August. When you had the spectacle of the mighty American superpower with our fine military, completely focused on an emergency evacuation, via the Kabul Commercial Airport, leaving behind tens of billions’ worth of American military equipment and some of our own people, as well as Afghans who worked for us. All of this has fed into it. And now we’re hearing a lot of things that sound good, but they’re not stopping anything. And I don’t see that even really, really strict sanctions that’s going to…. Putin has had a long time to prepare for this.
Beverly Hallberg:
And I want to delve into that just a little bit. Something that your policy focus does go into is the history of Russia from the USSR, to where we find ourselves today. And with that, the history of Putin. So, when we look at the history of the country, the man behind it, what do you think is important to know about the history and the man, to give us a perspective of what you think he’s actually hoping to achieve? What is it that is his end goal?
Claudia Rosett:
Well, Russia is vast, even as it is today, even post-Soviet. It reaches from the borders of Eastern Europe, all the way to the Asia Pacific. And it’s across 11 time zones, including the Kamchatka peninsula, in the Pacific Ocean, Northern Pacific. And when the Soviet Union fell apart, remember the Soviet Union…. Russia was an empire way back before it became communist. In 1917 came the Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin rises to power. The Soviet Union is now there to bedevil most of the 20th century. And the Soviet Union basically included what five Soviet socialist republics… Sorry, sorry, not five, 15 Soviet socialist republics, where Russia was the core. It was the control tower of the Kremlin. We’ve been talking about the Kremlin for generations because that’s the seat of power, the politburo for the Soviet Union, Putin in Russia today.
But a lot of territory was lost. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, all the five stands, as they’re called in Central Asia, became independent countries. Belarus and Ukraine declared independence. All these countries declared independence. In fact, the way that the Soviet Union finally collapsed was Russia became independent. There was nothing left for Mikhail Gorbachev, the final party boss of the Soviet Union, to govern. And that’s why he resigned on Christmas, stepped out on Christmas day. But Vladimir Putin wants to reassemble that. I suspect he’d like even more if he can get it. But there’s a difference. The Soviet Union, which was communist, was incredibly inefficient. Communism is a system that beggars the places that really try it.
One reason we shouldn’t have it here in America: it’s really not a good system. And Putin knows this. He was born in 1952 in Leningrad, what’s now St. Petersburg. He knows what it was to live under Stalin. He saw the communists, he worked through roses of KGB foreign intelligence officer, then went into politics as the Soviet Union collapsed. And he doesn’t like communism. In fact, the speech he gave in the Kremlin, on this past Monday night, he was really scorning the communist rule that came out of Russia in the last century. What he aspires to is a more efficient economy, much more closer to what they have now, where they aren’t bogged down by trying to collectivize the farms and have that kind of thing. But a Russian imperium. And he styled it like the old czars. So, what he wants is, I think partly he, I suspect — and here I’m making a guess — but if you read his statements, listen to him speak, watch him over the years, he wants revenge.
He has called it the greatest political catastrophe of the 20th century, that the Soviet Union collapsed. And I think he’s intent, it’s his life’s mission.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, let me ask you this. Where are the Russian people in all of this? I know that there have been some reports that, when you think about the Russian military, for them to go in Ukraine and fight Ukrainians, you’re talking about families fighting each other. So many people —
Claudia Rosett:
Yeah.
Beverly Hallberg:
Obviously, who are Russian there. Where are the Russian people when a comes to support of Vladimir Putin? And the potential that what his endgame is, is to reunite all the countries that were part of the former USSR?
Claudia Rosett:
Well, what you’re saying is true. There are two problems here. One is that the Russian people have less and less say in what Vladimir Putin does. And you can speculate that if he becomes bogged down in Ukraine, a lot of Russians start to die and so on. And it becomes, basically, people are looking at the example of the Soviet Union going into Afghanistan, where it turned into a hideous, decades-long war. A lot of —
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
Russians died. Even more Afghans died. And finally, the Soviet Union withdrew. And that, along with things like the Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986, were part of what helped to bring down a rotting Soviet Union, combined with what President Reagan was doing here. But, are we at that point? Is that likely to happen anytime soon? Putin has a lot of power. He has a very powerful secret service. This is a KGB professional, and he destroys his opponents. When people rise up to try and deflect him, steer him, oppose him, compete with him, a lot of them have died in horrible ways. Shot, poisoned with Polonium-210 in London. Hit with Novichok nerve agent like opposition leader, Navalny, who is now sitting —
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
In prison, having recovered from Novichok. So, it’s hard for them to do very much, they might. The other problem is that that could take a while. And Putin right now is on a roll. I’m extremely worried right now that Xi Jinping is looking at Taiwan and that might and that might have a much shorter fuse than we think. That China might make a move, because both of these countries have dictators who have regard the United States, our democratic system, our longtime role as leader of the free world, as their main enemy, they want us out of the picture. Then, they might turn on each other. But, for the moment, that’s the one-two. And there’s a tremendous window of opportunity for them here. We have a weak American president, who has said, and Bev, this part just floored me. When President Biden began saying he will not send troops into Ukraine. He said it so many times, I’ve lost count.
Jen Psaki, the Press Secretary, has said it. Everybody’s saying it, in the administration. “We will not send American troops into Ukraine.” Okay, if that’s the policy, there’s a good argument for that. But, don’t say it.
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
It’s a gift of information to Putin, where he can recalibrate his plans. He knows. Basically, when the message is, “America will not send troops to fight Russians,” well, Putin is willing to take the gamble, that he can send in Russians with guns. And we will leave. We’ll sit in Poland. President Biden has said he will fight if Putin attacks the 30-member NATO Alliance.
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
Putin can take a lot of territory, before he works around to NATO. And by the time he gets there, if that’s how this plays out, NATO will be in a much worse position. So —
Beverly Hallberg:
So, here —
Claudia Rosett:
Yeah.
Beverly Hallberg:
Let me ask you, the question I have for you, is I think that there’s been an interesting discussion within the United States, as how to view this. Even if people do agree that boots on the ground isn’t the answer, there seems to be, even among those who call themselves conservatives, a debate about how fearful we should be of Putin. What do you say to those who think, “Ah, not a big deal, if he takes over Ukraine”? You obviously view it as a big deal, I happen to agree with you. But, what do you say to that faction of even people who are conservative, who seem to be turning a blind eye to this and not looking at it as what I think you and I would agree is a concerning situation, to put it lightly?
Claudia Rosett:
I say, look at the 1930s, because we have a system. There is no earthly authority that imposes overall justice and order on the world, okay? It’s not like you can go down the street to a court and somebody will enforce it. I’m not even sure that’s true in this country at the moment. But broadly, there’s a understanding, a set of arrangements, that countries generally observe. And the United States has more, or less been the enforcer, the Pax Americana, in which with U.S. leadership, yes, there have been wars, but there has been no great configurations since we won World War II. And that’s now in jeopardy, because this is not only about Ukraine. Putin has already set the precedent with Crimea on President Obama’s watch, that he could grab territory, Crimea, from another country, Ukraine. That’s something that’s a very bad precedent.
And he’s now wholesale invading an independent other sovereign state. When that becomes the law of the jungle, basically —
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
— a lot is up for grabs. And there are some increasingly powerful predatory countries. China is top of the list. That’s the biggest danger. Russia, obviously. Iran in the Middle East, which would like hegemony there and is, basically, closing on the nuclear bomb, if they don’t already have it. And then, there’s the deadly four, there’s North Korea, which is not great, but yet intent on South Korea — that’s what they want — but has nuclear weapons and, I think, would be quite willing to sell them in this climate. This is a very dangerous time. Basically, Bev, how do you police a place? You don’t want to enforce things on every action. You set rules at the margin. Wyatt Earp has the shoot-out in the O.K. Corral, and that sort of sorts things out in Dodge.
Well, what we’re saying is we’re not going to go down to the O.K. Corral. We’re going to sit and watch and say, “This is a bad thing.” And we’re going to freeze the bank accounts of the bad guys and hope that that solves it. The trouble is, this is emboldening, as was Afghanistan, as is Biden’s energy policy, which is ruinous to the United States and a great help to Vladimir Putin, who his country has some of the world’s largest oil and gas reserves. And that is exactly what happened in the 1930s. The free world sat and watched as, well, both Japan to China in the ’30s, and Hitler, most to the point —
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
— began expanding his empire. And it wasn’t until he finally sent tanks into Poland that the free world moved. At that point, a lot of bad things were in the making. It took years to win that war. That’s not a good position to get into.
Beverly Hallberg:
Oh, and that’s why I think this policy focus is so important this month, because it goes through the history. It shows you the lens through which all of this is playing out. Claudia, what is the name of the policy focus again, since it’s been updated?
Claudia Rosett:
Yeah, we had to update it from “Russia’s Threat and America’s Follies.” It’s now “Russia’s War,” which —
Beverly Hallberg:
Russia’s War.
Claudia Rosett:
— is what we’re seeing. “And America’s Follies.” Look, there’s one great exception to the American follies, and that was President Reagan, who sized up the Soviet Union and called it an evil empire, which it was. And began an arms race. Their communism and was not efficient enough to win. And called for things like, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.” And that, together with the internal problems you were asking earlier, “Are Russians happy with this?” Probably some of them aren’t, but they have to have a way to connect and turn that into effect. That finally brought down the Soviet Union. Well, we should look to that.
Beverly Hallberg:
Yeah.
Claudia Rosett:
That’s the kind of playbook you want here. And I think, something is really as important for President Biden to try to recover that he has squandered is the credit bill threat of use of force. If he doesn’t want to use force, he has to at least be able to persuade people, dictators like Vladimir Putin, or Xi Jinping that he’s willing to.
Beverly Hallberg:
Right.
Claudia Rosett:
And right now, that’s not the message that’s coming through. He’s truly got to change that. We could turn this around, but I’m not yet seeing anything from the Biden administration that will.
Beverly Hallberg:
Well, I hope that we do learn from history, and I agree with you, we need to stop telegraphing all of our moves that we are going to make. We need that threat of the unknown. And that’s what strong leaders in other countries usually respond to, is strength from other leaders. So, we so appreciate you joining us today, Claudia. Claudia Rosett, the author of this month’s policy focus, which you can find on iwf.org. Claudia, thank you so much.
Claudia Rosett:
Thank you, Bev. Great talking with you.
Beverly Hallberg:
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