Evening with a look at the indian elections. We talked to milan vaishnav, Sadanand Dhume and Jonathan Shane issue and arvind panangariya. The last thing is seeing governments of the kind which has not done great. Rose is it about corruption or incompetence. It is both. Rose the power of geography and the future of the elections in india captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin today with the politics of the ukraine and the lessons of geography. President obama reaffirm his commitment to ukraine in a speech today the European Union summit in brussels. He warned that continued russian aggression in the country would result in more sanctions and further isolation. Over the last several days, the United States, europe and our partners around the world have been united in defense of these ideas. And united in support of the ukrainian people. Together weve condemned russias invasion of ukraine and rejected the legitimacy of the crimean referendum. Together, we have isolated russia politically, suspending it from the g8 nations and down grading our bilateral sides. Together, we are imposing costs through sanctions that have left a mark on russia and those accountable for its actions. And if the russian leadership stays on its current course, together we will ensure that this isolation deepens. Sanctions will expand and the toll on russias economy as well as expanding in the world will only increase. And meanwhile, the United States and our allies will continue to support the government of ukraine as they chart a democratic force. Together were going to provide a significant package of assistance that can help stabilize the ukrainian economy. And meet the basic needs of the people. Rose vladimin putins annexation geography of the political world. Robert kaplan considers it the geo political implications of another volatile region the South China Sea. The book is called asias cauldron, the south chinas sea, the end of a stable pick. Im happy to have Robert Kaplan at this stable. A pleasure to be here. Rose let me start with ukraine. Tell me how you see it through the prism of the books youve written about geography. First of all theres a difference between analysis and policy. Analysis has to be cold blooded but policy has to be inspirational and moral. What weve seen with president obamas speech in europe was moral inspirational leadership. But heres the problem. Heres what the story geography tells, which is that ukraine is simply thrust so far forward east and is so spacially enveloped by russia with long plat borders where russia can cut off trade, cut off natural gas deliveries, can infiltrate with secessionists, intelligence services. That ukraine was where russia started 9th century kiev. Ukraine simply matters more to any russian leader than it matters to the United States or even to leaders of europe. Now, its president obamas job therefore to inspire the europeans to say no, it matters to us too because we died for our ideals throughout the 20th century. And we cannot let this stand. So obama knows the difficulties through his realistic analysis but now he has to inspire europe to do more because of geography, europe is enmeshed with the russian economy. Just a web work of natural gas and oil pipeline going from russia into central and western europe where countries like bulgaria or germany or the Baltic States are heavily dependent on russian hydrocarbons. Thats going to make it very difficult for the europeans to enact real sanctions. Rose i want to put it in context, this recent conversation i had with henry kissinger. Heres what he said. I dont thinkf annex. In fact they have said he doesnt intend to annex crimea. The basic problem, there are a number of fundamental problem here. First problem is that no russian ive ever met finds it easy or even possible to continue ukraine a totally separate country. It was part of russia for 300 years. The history of the ukraine has been for several hundred years before that. So the evolution of ukraine is a matter that moves all russians. Even people like were firm on the view that ukraine belongs to russia. But now ukraine rose belongs to russia or is within rushs sphere of influence. Probably think it should be part of the same country. But as a minimum they want to be in the russian sphere of influence. Rose my question is, can ukraine have a place, can they have a relationship with the west and still have a special relationship with russia. Yes, they can. And that has to be the goal of western policy. To make ukraine a Civil Society at the same time that russia is assured of a stable and special relationship with ukraine. Because first of all crimea is ethnic russian, its pro russian, its essential with part of russia, and this annexation essentially formalized what were the facts on the ground. Theres no way russias going to give up crimea when its the port for its warm water fleet from the black sea into the mediterranean. As i said where ukraine is positioned on the map and given russian history, ukraine cannot be a normal state without a close relationship to russia. Rose heres what you have said in a Time Magazine piece this week. The reaction of many pundits, academics and many obama officials virtual annexation of crimea has been disbelief, border line disorientation which is 19th century behavior in the 21st century. Well the 19th century calls it lives on you and always will. Forget about the world being flat, Forget Technology as a great democratizer. Territory and the bonds of blood that go with our central makes us human. Yes. And Technology Rather than negate geography just made it more precious and claustrophobic. Rose what do you mean. A hundred years ago people could say africa doesnt matter, south america doesnt matter, now every place matters. Every place can be strategic. Because every place is interlocked with every other place by technology but its only by starting with geography that you understand whats going on in every place. Arguing for sequence of understanding. Its not geography or technology, its not geography or human values, its starting with geography to understand everything else. Its like my wristwatch. Its small and i can get an even smaller watch, but in order to understand how it works, you have to disaggregate all the gears and mechanisms inside. And in terms of the earth, that means sea lines of communication, etcetera. Rose looking at people in the ground, one putin in moscow, two obama in washington now in europe. What does putin want that obamas prepared to live with . Well, i think that putin, putins intelligence services, etcetera, failed him in ukraine. He thought that he could manipulate ukraines democracy under former president yanukovych who was like a neo tzar. And had a pro russian orientation. Well, that didnt work. Russia could not control it so he essentially lost ukraine. Rose wouldnt that have worked if in fact they would have allowed yanukovych to go through with the early conversation that he had with europe. And europe had been more urgent in making that happen. It might have, it might have. But now what putin has to fall back on is getting crimea and then undermining what the west has apparently won. Ukraine is now pro western in their interim government and putin will do everything to undermine the state. The eastern half of ukraine is heavily orthodox christian, heavily pro russian. He will use the east against the west. He will cut off trade. He will start fights with the ukraine on natural gas deliveries. He will use every geographical advantage that he can to make sure that what president obama said about making ukraine prosperous and stable does not work until theres a negotiation between russia and the west. Rose thats the way this crises would be solved. I think ultimately this crises can only be solved by having a ukraine that is a developing institutionalized Civil Society. And that make it proeuropean but it also has a special relationship with russia. Rose but can you imagine that putin, because of sanctions, because of what other circumstances, because of his other vision for russia as a great nation will be allowed, will accept that. He can accept it if there are facesaving measures. Theres always diplomatic advances. They can say they have relationship with russia. At the same time ukraine develops a western parliamentary system. Rose crimea certainly underscores the enduring geo politics, it stretches across a huge land mass protecting every criminal leaders from the tsars to the crooks are russia has legitimate security interest but this episode is not about them, this recent ukraine drama didnt start with geography with an outside power trying to get into russia as much as putin wants to pretend it did. This started with people inside russias orbit trying to get out ended by saying this is an exodus story not an invasion story. Heres how i will put it. There was a real legitimate ground swell of support inside the kiev to topple the regime and succeeded. Because the values of the eu, and what are those values that its about states, not nations. States are about individuals living in a system of impersonal laws. Nations are about protecting it anything solidarity. This was very attractive to the people of the ukraine. The problem is that where they are located on the map and their historical relationship with russia makes it very hard for them to have a total escape. Another problem thats gone unmentioned in the media is that were in about the sixth year of europes economic crises. This means that the eu has lost significant geo political bandwidth in central and eastern europe. For years theyve been buying infrastructure throughout eastern and central europe. From estonia in the north to bulgaria in the south feel threaten. Europe doesnt have the influence it had a half decade ago in this part of the world. Rose i made the point that europe says theyre prepared to spend 16 billion and he basically looked at me and said really. Show me 16 billion thats coming in here. How much do you think theyve spent so far. This seem the russians dont believe europe has the will in a sense or the Economic Resources to do that. Europe is, excuse me, russia is making a bet that europe is too linked in with russia because of the energy needs. Russia is the top dog natural gas market. Ten years from now that wont be the case anymore but it is now. The web work of pipeline going into europe essentially comprises europe and makes it impossible for the individual European Countries to enact the sanctions and level of punish that president obama would like to. Rose are we looking at the president too because since hes been in the office and because he came in office in part was to get us out of war and conflict and not engage in conflict because he wanted to, one, pivot to asia, and b, wanted to do some nation building at home. Yes. The pivot to asia is actually about 20 years late, 25 years late. After the berlin wall fell they wanted to pivot to asia. He had to be kicked out of kuwait. Then there was 12 years of a no fly zone instituted by the air force and naviment after that came 911, afghanistan and iraq and finally were out of iraq getting out of the afghanistan so the bureaucracy wants to pay more attention to asia. The problem is were in a very geo political world where we have a rivalry not only with china but with russia too and the middle east is very unstable. Rose in fact you argue that sort of tribes and geography have become more important because of the arab spring. Yes, exactly. People thought that the arab spring was about democracy. I disagree. I think it was about the collapse of illegitimate Central Authority but the fact that central ill what you jet mother Central Authority rose powers from beyond their own borders. Collapse, doesnt mean theres an institutional and bureaucratic basis in these countries for stable democracy. So what weve seen is syria collapse, libya partially collapse, tunisia is a very feeble but surviving democracy. I call it a potential arab portugal. Because remember it took portugal 13 years of instability before it really started get going. Rose i want to argue tunisia because it has an islamic democracy where islam and democracy have come together in tunisia and they have a government that seems to be functioning and democratic islamic. Yes but its very weak. Rose they wont to tunisia as the best example of what they could have been. Except tunisia cannot protect the borders since arab spring. It has been a state in one form or another since antiquity. Its an ageold cluster of civilizations. It has a real estate identity. But libya, syria, iraq, yemen are not states, theyre vague geographical expressions. So when theyre suffocating dictatorships collapse there was nothing there. So its not an accident that tunisia has relatively succeeded compared to some of these other arab countries. Rose let me turn to asia. This is called asias cauldron. The stout china sea and the end of a stable pacific a lot of the worlds eyes are focused on the pacific and the indian ocean because of the missing airline. You made an interesting point about malaysia in passing which was. I said malaysia is a very misunderstood country. I write a long chapter on malaysia in the book. 30 years ago malaysia was poor, down trodden, barely a country. It wasnt even a british colony, it was several federated states controlled by the british. It had Ethnic Violence between indigenous chinese, indigenous indians, indigenous Malay Muslims and in the last third of the centuries its come together, its institutionalized, it had six or seven Percent Economic Growth rates every year in and out. Its built a strong stable information edge economy where theres still ethnic and racial tension but theyre negotiated. There hasnt been any actual violence there in a very very long time. Malaysia is really the most prosperous of the major countries in southeast air. Rose including indonesia. Oh, yes. Its much more bureaucratally stable. Things work in malaysia. Rose how about singapore. Singapore is a city state. Its a little city but malaysia i traveled all over malaysia on air condition the buses. The airports are wonderful. Its just its still not up to the level where it could handle a crises like this. Rose so talk about the South China Sea. Talk about japan versus china and what the implications of that and how that is in fact geography as well. China seas, the south and East China Seas as an extension of their continental land mass, they see these adjacent seas the way we, the United States saw the caribbean in the 19th and early 20th century. We became a great nation by dominating the caribbean, thereby dominating the western hemisphere allowing us to effect the balance of power in the earn hemisphere. The chinese seek to dominate vietnam, malaysia, the philippines and south kai know sea and japan and the East China Sea thereby unlocking the door for the navy and ma lock awe and strait of the indian ocean and the entire block of islam. Chinese are supporting more and more oil and natural gas from the middle east across the indian ocean through the South China Sea. And they bristle at the idea that the americans would come from half a world away with their great navy and air force and seek a balance of power in the region. The chinese feel they should dominate the region. Rose they do recognize that United States is a power in the region and not going to go away. They do. Theyre very realistic. They recognize that the, remember china may be authoritarian but its a very collegial technocratic regime of people who, you know, its not a thugocracy the way russia is. What china bristles at is it doesnt want to make compromises to what they consider these small countries like vietnam and malaysia that have, and the philippines which have claims in the blue water of the energy rich South China Sea which contradicts chinas own claim. And it bristles with japan claiming the islands in the East China Sea. The chinese can live with the United States as a great power in the region. What they cant live with is the idea that they will not be the preponderant indigenous power in the region. Rose theyve had fractured relationship with almost everybody in the region. Absolutely. Rose witness to what makes it happen leading up to world war ii including south korea which is a huge economic power. Is there any possibility that those countries will get together because they fear vietnam, south korea, japan. Japan is distrusted because unlike the germans, they never properly accounted for what they did in world war two. Therefore, their distrusted especially by the south koreans. Because remember japan occupied what is now south korea, not just for the war but from 1910 to 1945, often very brutally. And japan, so throughout the region the japanese are distrusted. But increasingly people see the japanese as a hedge against the chinese. In other words, japan is slipping out of its quasi passivistic phase and now has more time as many major war ships as the high British Royal navy. Rose what do you make about the fact this week they are changing their nuclear philosophy shipping their enrichment ukrainian to the United States. What they want to do is reassure the United States because they need u. S. Diplomatic and military support in the region. Rose they have a treaty. They are a treaty ally of the United States. Maybe our most important treaty ally in the world. The philippine is also a treaty ally but its a much weaker state. Japan hosts tens of thousands of american troops. Its going to be hosting a Nuclear Power aircraft carrier. Rose but south korea as well but japan is really our anchor