festival of books in the barnacle gives a history of the civil war battle. visit booktv.org for this weekend's 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 have a culture in my blood, i have the language in my head most of the time and so spent quite a bit of time in russia. it really allows you to get a different sense and what i am struck by is historically, by historically i don't mean decades but in recent years, we americans whether republican or democrat tend to look at russia as one that is striding very large on the world stage and you just have to crack a newspaper in the last couple weeks and you will understand why we do that. we have seen russian president vladimir putin really cut quite a striking geopolitical image, strong arming us into the syrian deal, strong arming is probably the wrong word because that suggests we weren't willing, we were more than willing to accept the deal that rocked the stock of the edge of military action against syria. it is a deal that is very useful for the obama administration, much more useful for the russian federation because it enshrines the stability of the syrian regime. if it was an open question the a sod regime would be in power it is an open question because we need him in power to provide us with access to the chemical weapons we're supposed to dismantle land not only that but for the russians all sorts of ancillary benefits accrue because cereus in 1971 has been the way station and home port for russia's mediterranean flotilla. preserving the regime's hold on power, preserving its stability is a huge coup for the russian federation. the tangible benefits for us remain to be seen. from damascus, the discussion about damascus, you saw vladimir putin jet off to pteron in which he talked about russia's cooperation with iran's nuclear program and the potential reactivation of a sale of controversial 300 missiles to the iranian regime, something that was tabled in moscow so not great progress but this is symptomatic of something that we are all sensing when we look at u.s. foreign policy, u.s. foreign policy in the middle east is not very strategic at least of late, not very assertive and as a result there has been an effort by russia, an opportunistic effort to sweep in and take a strategic advantage and the russian government has done a very successful job and as a result it projects an image of a country that is on the march. but if you look at what is happening in russia itself, is clear that that perception is wrong. raja may appear strong now internationally but internally it is approaching the transformation. i would argue a transformation that will be when it sets in every bit as earth shattering as the collapse of the soviet union two decades ago. this upheaval is really the product of three trends that a beginning to emerge but are on trajectory to intersect in a very dramatic way. the first is very simply that russia is dying demographically speaking. for those that are not demographers, good for you because it is not the most exciting of professions but for those that are demographers, you know that 2.1 is the magic number. during the life span of a woman during the fertility life span of coleman, she should ostensibly create one child to replace herself, one to replace her husband and a fraction thereof to countered natural disasters, earthquakes, hurricanes, what have you and up population that sits at the replenish rate of 2.1 remain stable over time. united states is pretty much there. we can talk about the drivers of what drives u.s. population but what is clear, a whole bunch of countries certainly in europe are well below replenishment rate and russia is near the bottom. russia, according to u.n. statistics is that 1.6, that is why russia, every generation is restricted. what this is like in practice if you read russian statistics, and the russian census. russia as a result of natural death and immigration from the russian federation is constricting close to half a million people every year. vladimir putin in december of 2012 when he was giving one of his presidential campaign speeches talked about the fact that according to the trend lines his government was seeing, if the trend line is not ameliorated by 2015 the entire population of the russian federation which is 1 forty two.nine million now will shrink down by 1/4 to 107, hundred seven million people. that is a massive construction of the human capital that russia has currently and access as it moves into the future. the reasons are many but it is worth drawing them out. the first is russia, unlike the united states, never experienced a peace dividend after the end of the cold war in terms of investor in social and cultural and educational infrastructure. what this looks like in practice is like expectancy, medium expectancy for russian males today is the same as it is in madagascar, it is age 60. life expectancy for russian females is better at 73, the same as saudi arabia. both numbers are a decade to decade and a half lower than they are for their analog governments in europe in the united states so part of the reason for this is as a function of russian gdp, health care expenditures in russia have remained constant since the 1990s. the russian government is not spending more on the welfare of its people and it shows in the numbers. the second reason why russia's demographics are taking is you are seeing a wholesale collapse of the russian family. during the cold war soviet families by and large stuck together not necessarily because they all like each other because we all know we have members of our family we would just as an export to other cities but because they had no choice, populations were left in place and there was an extended family network that was cohesive and kept together by a political and economic circumstances. it is exactly the opposite, according to the un, russia has highest divorce rate in the world's. half of all russian marriages end in divorce. 60% of them do so in the first decade. long-term families and as a result of the logical product the long term families which is multiple children is increasingly endangered species so you have a family with one child but very rarely have families that have four, five or six children which is necessary for demographic replenishment. you have a rampant culture of abortion in russia which is useful to stress. on a number of levels. during the cold war, and for those that are students of the cold war you know that abortion was functionally the only available means of contraception. it was used widespread with terrible effects on female health and female fertility. this hasn't changed all that much. trend lines suggests there's more awareness on the part of russian authorities in terms of negative effects and also some investment. the numbers are not that much better. today in russia official statistics suggest a rate of abortion is $1.2 billion annually. that is equivalent to $300 an hour for a population of the one forty-two million people. this is where it gets even more grisly. if you listen to russian doctors, private sector experts, they tell you that network of publicly reported abortion is actually just the tip of the iceberg, the number could be twice that. because of abortions done off the books and abortions are not reported, that means russians are avoiding the equivalent of 2% of the population every year. in a very real sense killing of prospects for demographic growth in the process. on top of that, something russian experts themselves called an epidemic in hiv aids. this is a complex phenomenon so to unpack it for you, aids came to the russian federation because of the way the soviet union was, quote, functionally later in historic terms than it did to europe and the united states. when it hit the russian federation it hit with a vengeance. today something like 1% of the russian federation is estimated to be hiv-positive and this is being perpetuated and expanded by russia's own culture of drug use. russia as according to you and, it was noticed, important to stress we are talking un statistics which are not the most forward looking on demographics but they can be said to be the most impartial because they do these statistical aggregations for every country around the world. according to u.s. statistics russian consumption alone accounts for fifth of heroin used worldwide and since inject doubles our primary means of the transfer of hiv of the hiv virus this is organically linked to the problems russia is experiencing with hiv aids. if russia accounts for a fifth or more of all heroin consumed globally, notice the trend line, one feared according to the un of the injectable drug users in russia are hiv-positive. if you spit it out you understand why russian experts themselves talk about hiv aids in the context of an epidemic, one that they have a very hard time getting their hands around and treating. the third trend or fourth tranche that is compounding these is the fact that russia's population is fleeing in a very real sense. the repressive practices of the current russian state and dismal domestic conditions in economic, cultural and social terms are forcing russians to hide the exit stand as a result, the pace of exodus from russia, immigration from russia right now rivals the migration you saw a century ago when the bolsheviks took power. more than two million russians are estimated to have left since vladimir putin took power in the last days of 1999. one in five desires to live abroad and 40% of russians between the ages of 18 and 35 are actively contemplating departure. this is catastrophic because it gives you a window into thinking of russian population at large. these statistics are devastating all the more so because they are symptoms of a population that has lost hope in its future and no longer trusts its government to be a steward of its needs. this doesn't mean there are not hopeful signs. there have been hopeful signs it have the misfortune of being a demographer and you know over the last week month russia has had an uptick in fertility. russia's demographics for the last eight month for 2013 has been positive. very modestly so, but enough that the russian government decided to declare victory, our democratic crisis is over and we have nothing to worry about. nonsense. if you talk to demographers who watch this over the long term they will tell you that these sort of blips, spikes, peaks and valleys are normal over the long-term trend line but long-term trend line, all the things we talked about, collapse of the russian family, the abortion rate suggest the spiral will continue downward because there is no serious russian official effort to counteract all the symptoms of the problem. rather what you see on the part of the russian government is an effort to expand things that make russians feel good about themselves so you have 600 to $800 billion effort put forth by the russian government to expand infrastructure, infrastructure can mean anything you want it to mean. the russian government has parlayed this investment in infrastructure into for example military modernization and the modernization of their strategic arsenals. they have put the term infrastructure to use when they talk about for example expansion of industries in certain remote towns. that is great, but this is not long-term investment in the types of things, health care system, education, social networks, medical records, that will allow russians to rebound sustainably from this trend line. so this is the first, i apologize for spending some much time on it but useful to unpack what russia's demographic decline means, why is happening and why it is important. the second trend line is to focus on one aspect of that. russia's demographic trend line isn't uniform. russia is transforming. the country's muslim population compared to the trend line i laid out is fairing quite well. they don't abort as a matter of convenience, they don't drink generally, they don't divorce, divorce much less, they have a larger number of children for family units and as a result what you see is while the russian population writ large is declining, the percentage of muslims within the population is expanding so today it is the back of the on blog estimates that russian officials give you, that muslims make up 16% of the overall population. but according to russian government's own estimates, by the end of the decade, one in five russians is going to be muslim and by the middle of the century, not all projections say this but some projections do, you are going to be rapidly approaching parity. every other russian is going to be muslim and that has a whole set of geopolitical implications we will talk about a little bit later but nonetheless the point to hammer home is russia is transforming. the united states is transforming. this is not a bad trend per se except that the russian muslim minority has rapidly hit a glass ceiling. what you have is a population that is not well integrated, economic or social terms into the russian state. instead you see the russian government over the last decade aid and abet a rise of an aggressive far right nationalism, groups that are supported by the kremlin to promote its objectives among the population like walking together, and trendlines in the regions towards ceo kobe and protectionism. in economic terms, simply turned a blind eye on the part of russian authority and the result is having been deprived of economic opportunity and being seen as an internal abroad, this is a term for the russian policymaker who says russia's muslims are muslims but not so much russian. there part of an internal abroad we have to manage. you're seeing part of the muslim minority as a position in increasing radical issue. let me stop and see an example of what i mean. we know, our general view of the rise of radical islam in russia tends to begin and end with discussions of chechnya. we know the russians have been waging a grinding, bloody war of attrition against chechen separatists and islamic radicals, going on two decades. the russian government said they succeeded, the objective trendline suggests the war is far from being over but increasingly, that problem is migrating from russia's peer referee in to the russian heartland. a couple years ago in the winter i within the russian republic, the capital city, and there is a busy street where you can stand in the middle of the street as i did, try not to get hit by cars and look ahead and you see the islamic university of kazakhstan which is the state approved state funded state lionized institution of religious learning, made a big show of going out in 2008 and the tour of the facility and praised the curriculum for teaching nation compliant islam, a moderate strain of islam that is subservient or live in harmony with the russian state as a whole. and he turnaround and you see the largest radical mosque in the region paid for by saudi dollars, pakistani dollars, and you have russian officials who will tell you if you ask them that we have no idea how to deal with this because it is a challenge, an insurgent ideological challenge to the status quo and it is not just peaceful. last summer two of the highest religious authorities in the republic were targeted assassination attempt, one of the assassination attempt was successful. deputy of the region was killed in a car bomb. you see the growing signs of an insurgent and radical strain of islam beginning to make its way from the periphery into the russian heartland in places like this where russia was forced to deploy security services to quell domestic unrest for the first time since the fall of the soviet union because the military is dealing with chechnya. it is an internal matter. this is something to watch in particular. we can talk about this in a minute because russia's north caucasus is increasingly on our radar. we are not that far away from the olympics in russia. we are concerned over the security of the regional environment and every sign suggests that in addition to the olympics being an expensive boondoggle for the russian government there is also less serious security concern because what russia has promised the world that it has contained and whittle down and localized increasingly suggests the trend line suggests it is not contained, it is not localize, it is resilient and it is spreading. that is the second trend line. the third trend line is in a very real sense, this is going to sound alarmist but it is not and i will explain why. the chinese are coming. they are coming for the russians. i say this because russia, a third of russia geographically sits in asia. russia had and asia pivot before the obama administration did. russia was concerned about accessing asian markets and doing commerce with asian states like china but also if it can fix its territorial disputes with countries like japan, but increasingly that area, the russian far east and west of siberia which cumulatively is four million square miles, it is enormous, is baron. russians are leaving. the population of western siberia in the far east has declined by 20% over the last two decades. and when my parents were in the soviet union they were told where they couldn't live. they given permits to work in a certain city but not others. they were stuck in place and if you wanted to move there was the political process you had to go through and as a result throughout the soviet union there were people working in industries, and would not say if they were given a choice. with the collapse of those visas restraints, people are leaving for warmer climates and greener economic pastures but are leaving and as a result of territory of western siberia in the far east cumulatively has twenty-five million people. that translates to six russians person where mile and what this tells you is tom clancy was wrong. in the 1990s tom clancy wrote the bear and a dragon, about a future conflict between russia and china in which the military's would go to war. if you ask anybody in the russian government whether this is a reality, you will get an answer like what i got when i was there in march, never going to happen. when the people's liberation army comes across the border they will not find any russians to fight. there are no people. the problem with this is if there is no people there is no work force and that area has been likened to an energy super power. is the economic breadbasket of the russian federation and the investment in human capital and economic terms, the chinese government is making in the region, dwarfs what the russian government has done. places like a lot of vostok are closer geographically to beijing and moscow. what data map. these regions on russia's distant east which is in a very real sense still treated by people in moscow as an economic and political backwater are increasingly transforming and beginning to view themselves as asian generally and chinese specifically. back tees up a massive problem for russia because not only is russia not able to pivot to asia economically, it simply doesn't have control over it that territory, it is one in which real territorial conflict can arise and a rise soon. for those that don't know, this is a territory that cumulatively the russian government and the government of china have tussled over for centuries. the border was demarcated in 2001 by treaty called friendship and good neighbor but that is not infinite. the russian negotiators of the treaty tried to make it infinite, not to have a sunset date. the chinese negotiators said no, we are good. we will make this treaty last for 20 years. the 2001 treaty, eight years from now. you know why it does? looking in 2001 looking forward the chinese understood two decades hence the demographic picture may look very different. we may want to revisit the issue, may want to reclaim lost lands. as a result you are seeing a shift in the human capital also in the far east and in the economic capital and that has real buyer implications for russia as an energy superpower globally and also as an economic powerhouse in asia. those are the three macro trend lines i talk about in the book and the point that i make is by themselves each of these trendlines is deeply damaging to the russians. not fatal but deeply damaging. if you have a russian state with the power and the little calf the land will to turn things around they can't that the intersection of all three is catastrophic, what you see out of the russi government is increasingly a state that cannot deal with this. vladimir putin and his followers have built over the last dozen years built for the year and now. if you have problems at home you go abroad. into his grandstanding and syria and iran. peer and maybe a sign of weakness. this the has build has not dealt with these trends in a series passion. it is not wyatt that way. russia's government more than anything else, they would talk about it being a form of managed democracy. they don't even talk about managed democracy in war. it is more than anything else the cult of personality built around vladimir putin and his close circle of followers kept in place by a massive corruption and sweetheart contracts. this doesn't mean -- what it does mean is attracting lower real serious sustained international investment, that are required to turn these demographic trend lines around would require the dismantling of at least part of vladimir putin at state and that is not going to happen. the russian government is caught in the cul-de-sac of its own political making but that doesn't mean it is going to go quietly. doesn't mean it will simply dissolve, disappear and collapse. what it could mean is as we look into the future and i want you to understand we are not talking trendlines that will set in in earnest in the next couple years. in the next couple years what you see out of russia today will be what you get but as you look further into the future these trends are going to exert an index durable pull on how russia behaves. you can expect them to enhancep. you can expect them to enhancen behaves. you can expect them to enhanb p behaves. you can expect them to enhanl p behaves. you can expect them to enhance russia's imperial impulses. the cubs territories that were stripped away but political accident. vladimir putin himself talked in 2008 about the collapse of the soviet union being largest deal political catastrophe of the 20th century. this ideological meaning to reclaim lost lands is likely to be given a shot in the arm by the loss of lands elsewhere as russia begins to lose its eastern periphery the impulse to expand westward, not in political terms but in territorial terms is going to be reinforced if not become simply unquenchable. the second trend line and you will see this sooner, it is very likely come as you see the rise of an insurgent strain of extreme islam, and elsewhere in the eurasian heartland you see a widening of a conflict between the russian state and forces they can't control. we are not talking about one chechnya but many chechnyas. this only sounds like an overstatement. if you did not watch the emergence of the chechen conflict in its maturity, its maturation overtime has taken on a conflict of far larger proportions that envisioned by moscow. what i am saying is the trend lines you're seeing in the russian heartland at least have the potential to do this. they may not but they have the potential to do so. the third trend line is you can imagine as russia contorts internally, these ideological and religious tensions and begins to press west word for demographic and economic reasons and there will be in tensions with europe and the nato bloc. all of this is a long way of saying what i said at the outset which is we americans tend to see russia at face value. when vladimir putin strives very large on the world stage, as the geological coo with the arms deal in syria. we tend to assume what you see is what you get. russia is rising and russia has to be dealt with 4, dated to make progress on world affairs. what i am telling you is that might not be so simple. in fact the real challenge for the united states in 20 years, 30 years may not be from russia's strength that may be from russia's weakness and that should inform serious policy thinking about russia and our approach to it because we know the reset of relations that the obama administration has attempted to orchestrate with moscow and the last four years is not as healthy as it could be, i would say today. we know the reset has been a failure and we know now that the white house is at least beginning to think about what comes next. what this is intended to do is give them food for thought about where russia is heading because knowing where russia is heading is determinative to figuring out what our policy towards it should be. thank you, a will stop there. [applause] >> we will take questions if you will be so kind as to wait till the microphone is pastille and we would appreciate your stating your name and affiliation and viable read one of the questions we had on line and i will change it a little bit. how can the u.s. or could the u.s. effectively support positive trend formation in russia without creating the perception of foreign interference with only aggravates the anti-american feeling and we target liberty issues in that country? >> it is a great question and it actually sort of to go on a slight tangents for a second, one of the reasons why russia is so uncooperative on middle east policy, and for example spent 2-1/2 years supporting the regime against domestic opposition has seen this movie before. decade ago russia witnessed on its periphery what we now recall the color revolution. russia was petrified than and is petrified now that those trendlines from abroad will take hold within russia because here is a dirty secret, vladimir putin isn't all that popular. the last credible polling that i saw came out in the spring and it suggested that of respondents who participated in the vote for the presidential election in russia, only 34% said that they would vote for vladimir putin. in a demographic edition democratic society, that is catastrophic. even in an authoritarian one is deeply troubling which is why when you see and have seen over the last year has been a deepening of russia's anti-democratic drift. the dilemma for u.s. policymakers is how to square that circle, invest in democratic institutions, infrastructure without being seen as meddling in internal affairs, without having it proxies', whether it is the international republican institute national democratic institute blacklisted with foreign agents, kicked out of the country. that is a difficult needle to fred. that is the reason the obama administration spend so little time thinking about it. there are large things we can work with with regard to russia, strategic nuclear reduction, we can work on counterterrorism but these are 14 issues. i think one of the most fruitful conversations you can have with russia moving forward and then branch into something larger is the discussion about professional relations, economic opportunity for russia's minorities because russia and the united states on a number of issues dealing with radical islam and counterterrorism have tremendous commonality and the russians are wired to listen when we talk. especially now we can start a technical dialogue on security ahead of the games and migrate into a larger conversation about not using blunt force to deal with your discrepancies and muslim minority, have that become a larger conversation but it is not an easy conversation to have. >> nathaniel brown. my question was about the liberal opposition within russia and i wanted to ask you how much of an influence people like dulles channel would have going into the future? >> i think it is a good question. the state of russia's democratic opposition is one of those things you tend to watch for radically, gets put on trial on charges and gets released and gets wrapped up again. there is not a lot of sustained attention. i would point out a couple trendlines. one profoundly negative and one slightly positive. the profoundly negative one is vladimir putin understands very much because of his popularity ratings that there is a problem. there is a problem if there is the sustained liberal opposition to his rule and as a result he has tried to widen the conversation so his political faction is known as united russia which has undergone a series of public black eyes over the last two years. members in the world health parliament who have been caught with property in the united states above and beyond what they should have been afforded based on their paycheck, defense minister who engage potentially in craft based on personal vendetta, all sorts of things. these have tarnished the united russia brand. what vladimir putin has done is widen their conversation. he has been talking and more recently acting to create something called the russian national front. this is about 200 different political organizations, social organizations, which are intended to be an umbrella to feed ideas into united russia. it is intended to rehabilitate united russia, show united russia is more transparent and accountable listening to all these groups and the second is to push the liberal opposition to the outskirts of russian politics because everybody but everybody is part of the national front and you are not, that means you are crackpot and as a result vladimir putin has managed so far to maneuver through russian politics that there are hopeful signs that this is going to not be in definitely the case. for example mayoral elections suggests this dominance of united russia and united russian parties is a transient affair and left to their own devices voters will vote to elect somebody else. i am not exactly sure they want the specific person but somebody else other than the established hierarchy. this is something the kremlin is cognizant over, something it is not clear the kremlin can control or clampdown on. it gives you a glimmer of hope that there are yearning for pluralism beyond the construct that vladimir putin has created but not clear they will come to any meaningful fruition. >> watch out for richard. >> always do. >> richard white, as you know, one of the things president to news doing to with -- try to carve out control within the former soviet union particularly focusing on the caucuses, i think the idea is allowing russia to reconstitute the market which will hold the line to china penetration in some ways through the regime and so on. what do you think the chances of the success of that project will be in terms of reversing the trends you caution us about? >> this was intended as a hedge against china. it is actually a hedge against european liberalization. if you look what happened with russia's from arming of ukraine over the last two months you have seen a ukraine on track to sign an association agreement with the european union and as a result was penalized by the russian federation. it was essentially the ukrainian government was told if you choose your, if you make the mistake of choosing europe, don't choose my eurasian economic bloc that will be adverse consequences. for example clampdown on trade and a clampdown on raising of customs restrictions. this is a hedging strategy for shore but doesn't alter the overall trajectory and in fact among certain governments actually increases their push westward to buck the trend of realignment with moscow. it is not clear that russia's economy is as vibrant come as dynamic as it needs to be to drop people to it if the deck was not stacked and this is a real problem because a great little vignette you may have missed is in the last two weeks china has brought up the equivalence of 5% of ukrainian territory for agricultural purposes. this is of big deal because it suggests china is increasingly moving westward, also a challenge to russia because if russia covet ukraine which it does, covets it economically which it does, increasingly they are not just dealing with ukraine's western leanings but dealing with another more difficult variable which is the intrusion of china. against the trends it is not clear the economic plans of the russian federation are robust or forward-looking enough to make russia solvent, ameliorate the trends that i talked about. they are trying to but over the long term this is going to be a difficult road. >> i am mandel and words from israel. 5 two questions, one is the short-term question about russia and the iranian situation paula will vladimir putin play a positive role be a spoiler? the second question relates longer-term to china. and what does these troubling transformations going on in russia mean for china and china's role on the world scene? >> i think when you think about russia it is useful to remember the russian government is a master of creating a problem and positing itself as a solution to the problem. the russian government initiated the sale or approved the sale of as 300 anti-missile batteries to iran. and now the sale is back on the table. this is a little bit of a pattern because when you look at what russia is seeking when it comes to its partnership with iran is useful to point out partnership with iran is not across the board and uncontroversial in russia, not a settled issue, very strong vocal minority points out that the islamic republic is closer to the russian federation and is even to israel and anything any capabilities iran gains if they are not careful could be directed towards russia itself but the dominant line has always been cooperation as a result of defense industrial time, as a result of the fact that iran has the potential to exacerbate these radical islamic tendencies in the caucuses if it wants to and you keep at bay by engaging, it is animated by some in the russian elite by good old-fashioned anti-americans. the best defense is a good offense and if the west is bogged down with putting fires in the middle east is less likely to interfere in russia's own periphery and if russia has a legitimate concern about the encroachment of europe, the encroachment of nato, the encroachment of the united states, usually for those reasons which means u.s./iranian, if you think one is going to happen i am a little bit skeptical. don't let fear years of u.s. iranian politics -- but if you believe this is going to happen, it will be different this time, you have to understand russia can be disadvantaged as a result because the same paradigm is that progress in cooperation if the fall away iran is now no longer an adversary of the united states but is a partner. .. >> what we've seen is a growing close between the dhurming to the point where the russian orthodox church is across the board rubber stamp and a powerful voice vocalizing in support for a large percentage, but, notice, this is not a demographic question but a political question, confinement of conservative ideas translated by the orthodox church. whether this translates into more babies in russia? probably not. it's not a mistake that putin hit upon sort of, you know, the a license with the russian orthodox church because he saw the line and understands how the things work, but the russian orthodox church for him is less of a demographic salvation and more of a political ally. >> you mentioned earlier that during the 1990s, they had a peace dividend. therewas no, how the governmentn social services, medical structure, what have you. there was a great deal of u.s. aid. as i recall, setting up ngos, nongovernment organizations, to try to build a civil society in russia. has there been any evidence or any work that these private institutions have stepped into fill the void to perform social services that the government is not? >> i think it's a good question, and, yes, you know, i probably overspoke sort of overestimated only slightly when i said, you know, there was no peace dividend. there was in real terms, right, because the russian economy got better and there was ancillary runoff that got into the societies, and per capita, gdp now, better than the crash of the soviet union so you can't say there was no progress, but there was not serious systemic investments in the infrastructure you talk about in transparent elections, election monitoring, social services, social outreach, that's where the international community came in, where you had sort of a real sustained investment track on the part of the international community, who, also, by the way, from the defense department, a sustained track of the dismantlement of strategic weapons and dividends from that, you know, we can talk about it, u nonetheless, these were the two main tracks of u.s. interest in post-soviet russia. what's happening now with the roll back in russia it's a tucks of the fact that the kremlin sees entities created or at least partially supported by the international community as a threat, a potential insurgent threat so the approval over the last couple years of the foreign agent law requiring ngos, political ngos, not all ngos, political ngos that gain even a little bit of financing from the international community, meaning the united states, to register is a foreign agent essentially to be outside of the confines of polite russian politics tells you everything you need to know about the fact that the russian government is more interested in marginalizing elements than in exploiting them. the elements are effective as political voices, but as a threat by the kremlin, and as a result, marginalized. i have not done a stiled own how effective they've been, but i know based on kremlin practice, they are not seen as a partner but as a challenge of the russian government, and as a result, the knives are out. [inaudible conversations] >> how does russia view athletic and sports in terms of improving the world image, for example, mr. putin is well known as a judo expert. >> right. no, mr. putin trains with the russian national judo team, which is great, and when i was there in march, steven segol was there too. my childhood was complete. i can point out just a funny antedote being a black belt in russia is different than a black belt in japan. he went to japan, and there was pictures that made its way into the russian press and international press of him getting flipped over by an 11-year-old japanese girl which i don't know if it contributed to the downturn of japanese-russian relationships, but it didn't help. the olympics are important to the extent that the russian government can show that it -- these are ready, by the way, i don't know what the tally is as of this weekend, but on the order of dozens of billions of dollars, there's lots of indications that there's corruption riddling the institution, the head of the committee removed and replaced because the project was not on schedule, and so this is as much a public image problem for the russians as it is a security problem, but both things matter. russia has to provide, right, when the world watches, russia needs to provide a secure environment meaning, sadly, mean a lot of very heavy-handed security tactics, but they have a real problem on their hands, but it's also going to mean that they really have to get their economic, at least with the olympics up and running when the world begins to look, it's not looking like a village. >> one back there. >> hi, thank you for the invitation. i'm from the north area, and last week, i attended a conference at george washington university about russia, and a certain statistic jumped out at me. play jarrism in russian economic institutions is as high as 70%, so how can you tell when u.s. officials go to meet with russian officials, how do you know these officials are not? >> you can't. in fact, this is a real problem; right? there's the devaluing of educational integrity in russia is a symptom of the decline where there is a culture of corruption pervading other things, understand it pervades industrial and economic sectors with impact on ancillary sectors; right? the fact this is acceptable and they turn a blind eye tells you everything you need to know on what's for sale and what is not in today's russia. i made mention of it in the presentation. this is why statistics in russia, at least in part, are so suspect because it's very hard to discern who is doing good sustainable viable research in russia with 70% of resumés. that's why they are the means estimates because they are -- they tend to aggregate the high and the low of what you see. i've seen, you know, russian statistics which are far more bleak than what i laid out for you. this is the midline of the estimate, should tell you everything you need to know about how bad the situation actually is. >> thank you for speaking. i'm from the u.s. air force. are you talking about the ukraine, or ballkins or -- >> no, this is a question of, you know, sort of eyes bigger than symptom -- stomachs and military capability and russia going to war with everyone in an outright conflict. what putin built is a post modern empire of political and economic influence even if there's not actual military influence; right? those things, for example, russia strong arm tactics on poe land to prevent deconstruction of a pipeline to have independence in ukraine, things functionally keeping them in orbit without a shot fired are things that should be worry some, but, also, the truism is is that the longer russia's boundaries are the same without pushed outward, the more the urge diminishes, and the more successes are aprod against georgia, for example, the others are in the per riff rei. i can't tell you russia's going to war over ukraine, but i can tell you that in those places, they are watching the lines closely, and the russian imperial impulse is being strengthened simply by demographic mathematics; right? if you need to expand the population; right? there's not many places to do that. >> we have one final question. andrew, right behind you. >> ken meyer. what's happening with ethnic russia's living in the former republic of the soviet union? are they moving back to russia? flowing in the opposite direction? what role do they play, if any, in russia's relations with the former republic? >> well, the kremlin would certainly like them to for sure, and as a result, they did all sorts of things creating, you know, relatively hassle-free assumption of russian nationality, for example, for those who live abroad, claim russian heritage, get a passport, and that increases the virtual role, not the actual role because they are not in the russian federation reproducing, but the trend line in economic and political terms is profoundly negative. great example of this is is that the -- at the tail end of the presidency, the kremlin dreamt up a project of creating a high technology hub outside of moscow intended as a hub for technology, innovation, you know, on everything from software to biotech, everything. the new silicon valley, and when -- and there are a tremendous number of russians or -- people of russian extraction who are fantastic in the sciences, and russia reached out to those, and i remember, of course, this was not the sum total of the answer, but there was two russian nobel laureates who were approached living in the united states and england, i think, approached to come back to russia and bring innovation, bring their technology, bring their companies to russia and set up shop. the answer was not no. it was hell no because they understand very well that the culture, the political culture existing in russia means their intellectual property is not sacred, they are capricious with how they apportion aide or how they take proprior tear projects, and vault, they seek fortunes elsewhere, a drain for russia because the more the russian government appears to be hostile to entrepreneurship, the less ability it has to compete on the world stage, and that's why we see this mass out migration of russians because those with the means to do so are increasingly looking for economic alternatives. >> thank you. >> thank you. 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