STEPHEN F. COHEN: In 2008?
ANNE APPLEBAUM: In 2008 at a NATO meeting, they said there would be no membership plan for Ukraine and Georgia. And since then it hasn’t been on the table.
STEPHEN F. COHEN: They said something else at that meeting in 2008, that NATO membership remains open to Georgia and Ukraine.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Yes, theoretically, which means it remains open to Russia as well.
STEPHEN F. COHEN: Oh, please.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Vladimir, let’s hear from you on this topic. I know it’s something you feel strongly about.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: No, wait. I haven’t finished my point yet. Since 2008, Russia has been rebuilding its military, invading one neighbour after another, while the American army scaled back its European forces, so much so that by 2013 there was not one single American tank in Europe. You think this is an aggressive policy? There is no way that Putin believed that NATO was a genuine military threat. This is propaganda he has been using at home as a way to consolidate his power.
VLADIMIR POZNER: The us-versus-NATO discussion in no way consolidates his power at home. As far as the Russian people are concerned the issue has nothing to do with his power. But NATO has everything to do with the Russian psyche. And perception, as has been said, is very important. Let me remind you of what happened in 1962.
In 1962, two independent countries — the Soviet Union and Cuba — agreed to put Soviet missiles on Cuban soil, the reason being that there were American missiles in Turkey and the Soviets decided it would be a good idea to have their missiles closer to the United States. This was in the height of the Cold War. Two countries have the right to make that kind of decision, but when the United States found out that this was happening, it said, Not in our backyard. The U.S. demanded that the missiles be removed and said, We will sink your ships if we have to. We were on the verge of World War III and all parties seemed okay with that fate. These are facts.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Mr. Pozner, one of the things negotiated with—
VLADIMIR POZNER: May I finish my—
ANNE APPLEBAUM: No, you can’t.
VLADIMIR POZNER: Well, thank you very much for exhibiting the way the West speaks to Russia.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: One of the things negotiated with Russia was an agreement not to move nuclear missiles. That is a fact that you left out.
VLADIMIR POZNER: I disagree with you — that agreement did not happen. Rightly or wrongly, this is the way Russia looks at NATO. It sees it as a threat. NATO was created to protect the West from a possible Soviet invasion, but there is no more Soviet Union and there has not been one for over twenty-five years. The Warsaw Pact, which was the Soviet’s answer to NATO, is no longer upheld.
I tend to trust Mikhail Gorbachev. He told me three times that James Baker, the then U.S. secretary of state, expressed to him that if they agreed to the unification of Germany and took down the Berlin Wall, NATO would not move one inch to the east. Now, you may say he’s lying, but I think he’s telling the truth. During the Soviet period, which didn’t last very long after that, NATO did not move to the east. It only shifted under Clinton.
And when the Russians questioned this move east under Clinton, Yeltsin was told that they didn’t have an agreement. The U.S. said, We had an agreement with the Soviet Union, but you’re Russia. And so in 1991, Poland and Czechoslovakia, which was still Czechoslovakia back then, became members of NATO. And finally, NATO found itself on Russia’s border, in Estonia and Latvia.
You may think that there’s nothing dangerous about the whole scenario. I’m telling you — and this is perhaps a holdover of the Cold War mentality — that NATO is seen as a threat. In regards to Ukraine, the Russians have said, We will not allow NATO to be on our border in the southwest; we will not allow it, just as America did not allow the missiles in Cuba. You can condone it, or not condone it, but that is how it is perceived.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Garry?
GARRY KASPAROV: A couple of points. One is about Russian leaders, the elites. Mr. Cohen repeatedly said there are no Russian elites making decisions. In fact, there is one man who makes all the decisions. And by the way, these Russian elites, as a combined entity, know exactly where to put their kids, their money, their fortunes: south Kensington in London, Miami, probably in this country as well. So this whole idea of the Russian elites being afraid of the West is not true because they know that they can be safe with their fortunes and their future generations here.
Another myth, which I have heard repeatedly tonight, is that Putin is very popular. I don’t want to argue with you about the Levada-Centre’s integrity. I give them full credit. But what is an opinion poll? Somebody calls you anonymously and asks what you think about Mr. Putin. You know, it makes me really proud of my country that 20 percent of people said they didn’t like Putin, knowing it could be the KGB on the other end of the phone.
We’re being accused of being Cold Warriors, warmongering crazies, but we want to live in the twenty-first century. We are hearing about the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, in America and Russia. Sometimes I hear about Germany. What about the countries in between? I believe those people have the same rights.
VLADIMIR POZNER: I agree.
GARRY KASPAROV: I was in Kiev two weeks ago, not two years ago. And I was proud to meet this young Ukrainian who stood against the corrupt regime of Viktor Yanukovych. I believe it is the right of Ukrainians to decide what will happen to their country. Support for NATO membership in Ukraine eighteen months ago was merely 16 or 17 percent. It’s now quadrupled. Guess why?
It is not always Russians and Ukrainians at war there, against each other. I spoke to many people who fought on the eastern front against Russia, and most of them are ethnic Russians. They are fighting Putin’s invading armies because they don’t want to live in Putin’s Russia. This is the Russia I want to see.
VLADIMIR POZNER: Good.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: Okay, Stephen and then Anne.
STEPHEN F. COHEN: But we’re back to Putin again. Are we going to have a discussion of what is in the best interest of the West? That really is embedded in the question, isn’t it? Should we engage Russia or should we have a debate about how we are going to get rid of Putin?
Ms. Applebaum wrote a wonderful book of history called Gulag, and I strongly recommend you read it if you have an interest in the subject because a master historian is at work there. But now comes the “however.”
I understand that, for one reason or another, she views this whole saga of NATO expansion from the perspective of central and eastern Europe. But the story she told of NATO expansion is written nowhere in the history books we have now. There was tremendous pressure on Clinton in the United States to go back on the word that had been given to Gorbachev about NATO expansion. The whole history of NATO expansion that we’ve heard tonight is the fairy-tale version: NATO expanded to protect and save central and eastern European countries from a menacing Russia while bringing democracy along the way. But it isn’t the true story.
There is another debate we should be having here, though some of you won’t even like the question: Does a nation, any nation, have the right to join NATO if it technically qualifies for membership? I don’t think it does.