Russia is heading not only ideologically but also geopolitically and demographically is something that ive spent a lot of time looking at both professionally and personally. My personal history is that i am the child of a soviet so i sort of have a culture in my blood. I have the language in my head most of the time. So ive spent quite a bit of time in russia so it really sort of allows you to get a different a bit of a sense. And what i am struck by is that historically and by historic we i dont mean by decades but certainly in recent years, we americans whether we are republican or democrat, we tend to look at russia as one that is striving very well on the worlds stage and you just have to crack open a newspaper in the last couple of weeks and you will understand exactly why we do that. We have seen russian president Vladimir Putin cut quite a striking geopolitical the image of strong warming us into the field of the syrian field strong farming is the wrong word because it suggests
Festival of books in the barnacle gives a history of the civil war battle. Visit booktv. Org for this weekends television schedule. Now on booktv, ilan berman predicts the collapse of russia due to internal social and demographic decline and external challenges from china. It is about an hour. [applause] thank you. I love that john is making his way off the stage so when you throw things at me you have an unimpeded view. Thank you as always for your interest and thank you to the Heritage Foundation for hosting me. Always nice to come out and talk about issues i work a lot on in the privacy of my office and share it with a broader audience. Let me start sort of where john ended which is to talk about the external first and then focus on the internal. The question of russia and where russia is heading not only ideologically but geopolitically and demographically, i spent a lot of time looking at both professionally and personally. My personal history is i am the child of soviets so i hav
Well. The last day on which the United States and the European Union announced sanctions together at the end of april, the russian stock market gained 1. 5 . I would suggest that is not a positive signal for the effect of those sanctions. May 2nd, president obama and chancellor merkel said if russia interfered with the may 20 elections there would be substantial sanctions. There were activities by armed separatists supported by moscow. We have not seen any punishment for that. In the g7 when they met in normandy said there would be additional sanctions over the course of the next month if russia stopped being part of the problem. Again, weve seen continued problems including the introduction of heavy weapons on the part of the separatist tanks, missile launchers as evidenced by the shootdown of the ukrainian elutian 76 on friday. The west needs to be tougher in terms of imposing costs if we are going to try to encourage the russians to shift their policy. The last point is it does seem
Sticking point for the russians. Spent thank you very much, ambassador. I think we want to quickly get to your questions and comments so get ready. Before we do that id like to give ambassador issued your an opportunity to respond to dr. Brzezinskis remarks. First, in the way, and i mean this half cynical, we can say thank you to Vladimir Putin for reminding us that at least a good reason for having nato. Nato was in the process of getting off the radar screen a little bit of the major european and transatlantic debate. Now its back on the radar screen. Thats good. Second, president putin has also, by doing what he did, reminded europeans that there is an overwhelmingly good reason for trying to get our act together in terms of speaking with one voice for the eu to be a political actor that can exercise a significant role, as it should, from dissenting 500 Million People. And third, i think the events are in the process, are already re energizing the debate about how best european coun
Unfortunately. So i do agree that osce has a potential important and continuing role to play in supporting what at a different level needs to be hammered out between the u. S. , the european union, the ukrainian themselves, and of course the russian government. Thank you. Yes . Please state your name and affiliation. Yes, right there. Steve lair by, rand corporation. A quick comment speak up, please. A quick comment to wolfgang and then a question to doctor brzezinski. Wolfgang, that question that you mentioned regarding troops and so forth, that was the beginning of that sentence is very important, because it says as long as the current security situation does not change. Well, it certainly changed when one country invades another, and annexes it. So i think the situation most people would say has radically changed and therefore western policy is no longer obligated by that statement. I would say i want to get your reaction to china. How do you think china looks at this . Because they