Host and now joining us from new york is garry kasparov. Mr. Kasparov, in your newest book, winter is coming, you write that Vladimir Putin was a russian problem, that he would soon be a regional problem and then a global problem. Guest he is already. I wrote it quite a few years ago, and i dont think anyone doubts today that Vladimir Putin and his regime are, is a threat for global stability. Were still arguing whether, you know, its the biggest threat, which i believe it is. Some people think about other threats like isis, alqaeda which i think are regional, but nobody doubts that as long as putin stays in power, as long as putin stays in kremlin, russia will be a major, major problem. Host throughout your book you tell us, the readers, that Vladimir Putin has warned us what hes going to do. Guest yeah. I think, you know, many different occasions putin was quite explicit in sending the message. Even before his invasion of republic of georgia in 2008, you can go back, you know, a few months before it happened many august 2008 in august 2008, and you could hear putin communicating from his perspectives almost like a decoded message. When he talked about, you know, the special interests of russia meaning the normer soviet union former soviet union, when he talks about the former president of georgia. So it seems to me that very often the western leaders and the western public and the western media, they pretended that it was not a real threat. We can look at the long list of things that putin would never do. This list had been produced from year to year, year after year. And now when we look at this list, and we can see that, you know, putin has been simply turning page after page and just going back a year ago, you could hear outryes saying crimea impossible. Then Eastern Ukraine and other things. Putin would be willing to negotiate and stop here. Come on, dictator doesnt stop if he its like animal instinct. If he smells blood, he goes for kill. And we know from history whether people may find parallels a bit too alarming, but we know from history that dictators are different from elected politicians. They dont ask why. Dictators always ask why not . Host with regard to the ukraine, did we you say we had ample warning on that. Has our policy so far been in any way successful . Guest i could say that the western reaction on putins naked aggression against a neighboring state was quite mild by my standards. But, you know, why i can say its less, probably much less than needed, its still probably more than expected. And, actually, i think putin made this miscalculation. He thought after having a free hand everywhere like in georgia or, you know, just in other occasions where he demonstrated, i mean, his strong stance and always pushed western powers like in syria, he defended bashar al assad, a mass murder. And after obamas infamous red line and unwillingness to perform when assad crossed this red line, i think putin just realized whatever he would do, no strong reaction could be expected. So i think it is the wen unwillingness to western unwillingness to accept annexation of crimea because it was the first change of borders since 1945, and i think the european powers and the United States realized that accepting that could open a pandoras box. And also putin underestimated resistance from the ukrainian side. The biggest mistake we can make in calculating the reaction of the west and ukraine on his aggression was his expectation that ethnic russians in ukraine and Eastern Ukraine and south ukraine would be meeting russian tanks with flowers. Instead he met very steep resistance, and thats the reason why ukraine actually managed to survive, and the western powers had no choice but to gradually come into an agreement with Ukrainian Government about supplying it with small weapons and other means of resistance. Host garry kasparov, in your view why do you think the west has been reluctant to be more aggressively antiputin . Guest actually thats why i wrote the book. Because, you know, its like in the game of chess, you know . You look at the position, and before you understand, you know, whats happened in the game, you have to go many moves before. You have to analyze the game ideally from the very beginning. And to understand what kind of mistakes you make. So i think its important for us to look at the events starting in 89, 9, 0 93. Thats where the book actually began talking about the collapse of the soviet empire, the fall of the berlin wall, the freedom this Eastern Europe in Eastern Europe, huge expectations in former soviet union, russia attaching to democracy and huge sense of relief in the west, you know . The cold war has been won. So we can celebrate. And you could even see the me mentous change in mind momentous change in mind of american voters. Bush 41 loses to bill clinton. So suddenly the man with few experience in Foreign Policy wins u. S. Presidency because cold war was over. And i wanted to explain how this relaxation, complacency led to the revival of the forces of evil. Francis talk fukuyama wrote a gt book in 1992, it was a bestseller. It didnt work out, you know, the whole notion that the history could end was wrong. But what everybody including myself believed at the time, fine, now its time to look for a Brighter Future and all these battles, all the wars have been won by the sacrifices of our great predecessors. In every generation we have to fight protecting freedom and resisting the forces that are trying to attack our way of life. And we could see that during the clinton years, clintons presidency. Alqaeda was on the rise. And when clinton left the office, Vladimir Putin came in. Imagine in 1991 anybody predicting that in 2000, the year 2000 a kgb officer would be a president of russia was impossible. And we could see whats happened afterward. The western powers didnt want to to believe that russia could be dangerous. Russia was invited to g8. Though i never liked, you know, it to be called g8. For me it was g7 1 because russia didnt belong there, it was neither democracy, nor industrial power. But yeltsin was invited, putin stayed there, and there were many advances. Theres a big myth now which also i am addressing in my book. Its about russia having been hue milllated like famous german. Absolute nonsense. When you look at whats happened in the 90s, its anything to compare germany. The Russian Troops left germany, they were paid the for that. So the whole idea that, you know, the west played it wrong by provoking russia, provoking Russian National sentiment, i dont think this argument can hold water. And at the same time we should remember that ian european Eastern European nations and the baltic nations, they have pretty strong memory. Theres genetic memory of russian occupation. So thats why it wounded nato rex. And the motion protection. And the notion that the expansion of nato was a mistake basically denies these nations the right for selfexpression. Poland are, other Eastern European countries wanted to be protected by nato and they were free nations. I think nato had to extend this political umbrella. And, again, this is the only thing that stopped putin short of attacking baltic states. Host but in chess as well dont you have to plan several moves ahead . So whats next . Guest yeah. This is important, yeah. Thats an excellent point about strategy. I think that in 992 great 1992 great things could have happened if america had a plan. But i know that is very difficult if we have another chess parallel. What i call in my primer book [inaudible] you won the game with. You want to celebrate. You want to drink champagne, you want to hear stories that you were grade and you you were great. But your opponents are studying, and the next day you could say, you know, someone who was already armed with this knowledge that has been accumulating, analyzing quietly all the games that were made in the all the moved that were made in the game that you won and somebody else lost. So 90 years of missed opportunities. Its not accidental that the beginning of the presidency of george w. Bush, bush 43, started with alqaeda spiking. So i think we already, you know, saw the dramatic change in the geopolitical arena. But, again, there was no yet strategy to understand how important is this change. Still the way america and europe look at the map, it was like [inaudible] again. Taliban, alqaeda, afghanistan would go there. Iraq is there. But in this interdependent world, its like a big picture. You cannot do micromanagement because whatever you do with taliban in afghanistan, you eventually could can, you know, have effect and different effect, positive, often negative, in pakistan, maybe indonesia, the large muslim nation. The middle east. So every move on this giant geopolitical board has effect elsewhere. And again, bush 43, he didnt have any longterm strategic view of, you know, what is your plan. Not an exit strategy. Because i think the whole idea of conflict and exit strategy today is the fact that you cant exit from this planet. You know, you may criticize the invasion of [inaudible] but you should now look for 2015 and to understand that withdrawal announced by obama 2009 was the latest mistake. Its in chess, again, we say that plan is better than no plan. And our greatest challenge today is that we do not have a plan. The bad guys do have a plan. And we say, oh, isis propaganda is horrible, you know . It can attract very small amount of people. Yes, but a small amount of people could be millions because you have so many disaffected people, people that are looking for some adventure, people for some crazy stuff. And, unfortunately, you know, we have enemies of the free world from Vladimir Putin which i think is a ringleader to other guys like iranian mule las, isis, alqaeda, taliban, castro regime, venezuela, dictators. So you have all these people that could look for new opportunities to sort of promote their agenda which is agenda of destruction. Because they cant come up with a positive plan. The only way for them to prove they are relevant is to attack us, attack our way of life. And this is something that i warn people in my book. We must understand that this is not war for us to call off. The war on the free world has been declared, and as long as these guys are around, they will keep pushing us. So thats why, again, winter is coming. Not the news i want to deliver, but its a cold season. And i hope that people will just realize that we at least have to start a very serious debate about our vision of the future. Host are we scared of Vladimir Putin . And his potential next moves . Guest again, while im always trying to be cautious in bringing the 30s and the ruse of adolf hitler and the rides of adolf hitler, we should remember history. Before you saw him becoming the greatest criminal in the history of the human race though some people in the soviet union would say stalin could definitely compete with him as a mass murder but you could see that in see 34, 35, he could capitalize with that weakness. As a great dictator he could realize he always had a opportunities to expand his influence. Because everybody was afraid of him. Putin, you know, hes in power for 15 years. But its not the first year, not his first term, not his second term where he started and he is active moves outside of russia. You know, its a logic of any dictatorship. At one point dictator runs out of the domestic agenda. He doesnt have anything else to offer. He needs a new mythology. He needs new ideas that he can sell to the public to prove that hes invincible, hes supermacho, hes someone who is indispensable, and without him the country dies. So he needs enemies. Enemies inside the country destroyed. Opposition, you know, its either meager or just, you know, totally enemies will be found outside. So thats when you look at russian propaganda machine, its not happened overnight. You could see they were turning it on with more volume, with more volume, and today its hutch worse than anytime in the soviet yawn on. My brother was born and raised under stalin. Okay. Television at that time was nonexistent. But the level of propaganda, shes still in moscow. She keeps telling me that even her mind, you know, is suffering from this 24 7, you know, brutal attacks. Transmissions full of hatred, you know . Describing the rest of the world as an absolute evil that is threatening here russia. So the country is being surrounded by enemies, and the country is under siege, and we just have to, we just have to protect the country which means, you know, everything government does is about criticism. Its difficult even for people that because you cant imagine that propaganda could be can lying totally. Its like george orwell, you know, freedom is slavery, war is peace. White is black. So they created a mechanism that probably was never seen before that paralyzed the hinds of millions and millions of the minds of millions and millions of russians, and this poison may stay for quite a while before country can go back to norm. Host so your mother is still living in has cow. Guest yeah, my mother because she has sisters, nephews, nieces. Its a big family and difficult to move, you know, outside of the country where we were born. We all were born there, but it was part of the former soviet union. So when soviet union collapsed, we moved to moscow which is the capital of the state where we were born. We all grew up with russian education, russian history, and seeing the demolition of the greatness of the country, the heritage, social and cultural, in scientific areas, its very painful because russia had a lot of bad things that happened throughout history, but also it had a Huge Positive influence towards world culture. And today, you know, it has been almost thrown away. And we can just only hope that one day, sooner than later, our country will Start Building a future on positives rather than on negatives and hatred. Host so garry kasparov, hasnt Vladimir Putin restored quite a bit of russian pride. Guest look, lets go back to the 30s. Adolf hitler also restored you know, restoration means creating a foundation thats warped, without wars, without prosecution of the [inaudible] without, you know, limiting the freedom of speech and just, you know, general freedom and human rights inside a country. Putins stability is an illusion. When people say putins very popular, putins very popular. Its like a dictators very popular. What do you expect . You call people and ask ask what do you think about Vladimir Putin, and its anonymous call. Im still surprised there are 25 of russians who are brave enough to tell anonymous, you know, caller that they didnt like putin. So if youre one restaurant in town serving one dish, so can you call it popular . Yes, of course, its popular. Host at what point in your life were you taken into the soviet system and deemed a chessmaster . Guest soviet union had a very Sophisticated Network of finding talent. Because kids in soviet union had not so many options available. So, again, there was no real politics there and no sort of law as a profession, so you couldnt [inaudible] no real business. So the many options that were available for the kids in the free world, in the soviet union they were simply taboo. Thats what parents always look for and opportunities for their kids, whether boy and girl or to, you know, to be promoted and some talent to be discovered. And i was lucky that, you know, i discovered chess at home at age 6, and at age 7 i was already part of, you know, this little club this my in my native town. And then it was almost automatic. Because the moment you are picked up by the system, you know, the interest was to make sure that the talent is found, the talent is promoted, talent is given a chance to actually defend the country in an international arena. Because the whole purpose of promoting this, especially chess, was to prove the intellectual, cultural superiority of the soviet regime, communist regime over decadent west. Host so were you removed from your home . Guest no. No, no, no, no. It was not that dramatic. No. I grew are up at home. My father died when i was 7, so my mother and my grandfather, so they just, you know, they played role. Also my uncle, my younger brother of my father. So i had, you know, education of course, i graduated my school with gold medal, so highest result in soviet union. But i also read a lot of books. So thanks to my uncle, and hi mother didnt stop me from doing that, i could read books that were not part of the program. Other books that helped me to sort of shape my ideas about my views about soviet union and the rest of the world. Also since 13 i have been traveling abroad. Because i was one of the best in the soviet union. So i could actually understand that the soviet model was not one to copy. It was literally the dead end. But while i was fighting for my title, for the World Championship title, i definitely had no intention of sort of revealing my true emotions about the regime. And there again i was quite young. But since i won the title, i became pretty active in promoting my views. And by the end when the whole system, you know, soviet system in Eastern Europe but also within the perimeters of the former soviet union was about to collapse, i already played quite an active role in the democratic movement. And thats how, you know, i presented my credentials in the opening pages of the winter is coming. Host garry kasparov, do you see similarities . Do you see similarities to whats happening today to the soviet system as the previous general generation . Guest yeah. Im always cautious in making direct appeals so usually ive been trying to look at the 30s or the 50s. But i understand, you know, every comparison, so it might be questioned. Because, you know, we can look for a similar path, but at the end of the day, you know, the atmospheres are different. So we see well, if we go back to the to the 30s, for instance, how many states at that time played a vital role in the global arena . Ten . Its a very, very small number of states. So today you have a totally different picture. So say, you know, the if you make direct projection from 2000 into 1975, again, 1975 it was a fight between two systems. There was still, you know, the very powerful soviet system. Many countries that followed, you know, the soviet model. Soviet union was not powerful only militarily, but also had, you know, a lot of money, and the economy at that time people didnt know how weak was that. So i think that today trying to actually say that we are moving into a new cold war era, again, could scare some people. No, no, no, its not exactly 1962 crisis this the caribbean, this is not, you know, Ronald Reagan star wars program. And some will be right but also wrong. The dividing line, like the berlin wall, has disappeared doesnt mean we are not facing similar threats. So it makes it more difficult for us to understand that these threats are real. And while, you know, the free world is much stronger than 40 years ago, for the first time when the free world, you know, dominates this planet both economically and militarily, but at the same time we dont have the same political will. We dont have the same consensus of the public that theres an evil that makes us, you know, concentrate in to oazing it. Opposing it. So we could feel indecisiveness, weakness. Actually, unwillingness to even Pay Attention to these threats. And thats why here in america or in europe, you know, time and again we can hear the same voices. Oh, lets, you know, retreat, you know . What happened in ukraine is not our business. What happens in iraq is not our business. Wait a second. We live in a world where everything is globalized. Anybody can have access to information, any event this the next few world by just supplieding a finger on the screen sliding a finger on the screen. Business is global. Financials are global. How can you just pretend you can walk away and create a vacuum . Theres novack qume. Somebody else will grab it. And most likely somebody else will be a group or a state with intentions opposite to our plan, to our vision of the future. So thats why, you know, i want people just to understand that we live in certain reality. 2015 is the world that, you know, where everything depends on each other. And trying to pretend that you can just cut your involvement here but keep the rest is impossible. Because, you know, you have to its a full month ty. You cant cut it. This is not for you to decide. Hurricane is still the leader america is still the leader of the free world. America still has the military and economic capacity to protect the free world against all sorts of threat. Ask thinking that, you know, oh and thing that, you know, oh, we can walk away is just making a grave mistake. The difference is, you know, you have to make sure that you build coalition. And real coalitions. You should look at western europe, you should look at japan, you should look at other democracyings. You have brazil, you have south africa. You know, this year we are out celebrating the 800th anniversary of magna carta. Thats the founding document of the free world. And i think that its time to start thinking about the magna carta for the future. The magna carta not the United Nations where every nation has a seat and could, you know, stay there no matter what this nation actually believes in and what kind of practices of democracy they perform. So we need the vision that will be based on the values that help us to create this world. And, again, we should understand its not, its not just, you know, a simple process of negotiation. We have to show strength. We have to fight for our future. And, again, the book is a warning about threat and an invitation. Host two things about book. Number one, you bring up baklovs hovel. Why is he somebody you admire. Guest again. Its very many things in the book that are very personal. I could look at the events of the past. From one side of the iron curtain in soviet union, but also i traveled a lot and, you know, i know a lot about history of this country and also the history of the free world. So, and i always like to, you know, have this objective view or understanding of national events. For me people like hovel, he was an absolutely unique human being. Somebody who just came from an art world, so writing books, plays. And he realized that Free Expression was not possible under communist dictatorship. And he sacrificed his personal safety, i mean, his career for defending that values that were absolutely vital for sort of recovering the freedom of his country. And many things that he did and many things that he explained to us, you know, that what he said is like living this truce. So the way he presented this hedge before collapse of soviet message before the collapse of the soviet union and after he became the president first of czechoslovakia and then of the czech republic. By the way, very quiet wars. Like it was a revolution in the middle of a divorce. Look whats happened, how much blood was spilled before, you know, the dust settles. Hook whats happening in ukraine now look whats happening in ukraine now. Thats also one of his accomplishments. Currently i am chairman of the board of the human rights foundation, and we every year, you know, at the Freedom Forum we present a hovel prize for creative dissent just to encourage people to use and send a message of freedom. Host and finally, whats the policy prescription that you would like to see happen . Guest before we can work out policy, we have to start a debate. And i hope that the book that will be released by the end of the year will play a certain role in provoking final debate at the primaries in the u. S. President ial election. Also the book will be published in several european countries, and i think it will have an effect on public debate there. I think we should realize certain realities. You know, call it the climate reality ares, and its unfortunately not global warming, but more likely geopolitical global freezing. Is and i think what i want to see first, i want to see a longterm plan. Again, what kind of world we want to see five, ten years from now. We have to compete with bad guys, you know, coming up with a positive vision are. And, again, we have to start preparing for [inaudible] in 1991 the world was not ready for the collapse of the soviet union, and thats why we couldnt come up with a land. Today we have to learn from these lessons and come up with a vision that will help us to react instantly on the collapse of Vladimir Putin, collapse of other dictatorial regimes and terrorist groups, because unless we react properly, unless we help it happen, you know, rather sooner than later, we may be facing, you know, a new spin, a new cycle of even more lethal threats. Host and here on booktv in new york weve been talking with garry kasparov, world chess champion, author. Here is his most recent book, its out in october winters coming why Vladimir Putin and the enemies of the free world must be stopped. Youre watching booktv on location in new york city. Youre watching booktv, television for serious readers. You can watch any program you see here online at booktv. Org. Host and youre watching booktv on cspan2. We are at the annual freedom fest this las vegas. In las vegas. Were interviewing authors out here. Authors who have books is what i was literally going to