NATO is a security organization. It’s not the Chamber of Commerce. It’s not a non-selective sorority or fraternity. You get in if we like you. It’s a security organization and the only criterion that matters is, does this country’s membership enhance our security?
NATO has brought us the greatest crisis in international affairs since the Cuban Missile Crisis. And a lot of people, including NATO member states, are rethinking the organization. Read what the Czech president has been saying, or what is being said in Hungary or in the other half of Poland. There are a lot of fundamental questions about whether or not this has really enhanced the security of Europe. But that is the subject for another debate. You don’t get a debate with opinion; you get one with facts. And these are facts.
GARRY KASPAROV: The president of the Czech Republic, Miloš Zeman, received campaign funds from Lukoil, the Russian oil company. And he was defied by his own parliament.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Yes.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: I want to be conscious of time, but I’d like to deal with a topic that is on a lot of people’s minds. Anne, you and I spoke about this earlier so I want you to answer it for the audience. It’s about the presence of nuclear weapons, the large nuclear arsenal that Russia has at its disposal. I’m sure many people would naturally feel a tendency to come over to the compromise camp on the basis that we just can’t afford to get this wrong. We can’t risk the potential for an escalation that could flow from a policy of isolation. How do you respond to that?
ANNE APPLEBAUM: First I want to respond to Mr. Pozner, who didn’t let me correct him. One of the other elements of NATO expansion, which was very important, was an agreement to not move nuclear missiles, an agreement which the West has kept. This is why the Cuban Missile Crisis analogy is completely wrong.
VLADIMIR POZNER: It’s not wrong at all. It’s fear.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Fear has nothing to do with it.
VLADIMIR POZNER: It’s fear on both sides.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Okay, so there is fear. But what is the answer to the question about nuclear missiles? Fear and fear of nuclear weapons is very central to this issue. It actually explains why we aren’t more enthusiastic about helping Ukraine. If Ukraine were being invaded by Belarus, we might give them some radar weapons and not worry about it. Why don’t we help Ukraine? It is because we’re afraid of Russia’s nuclear arsenal. And we are also afraid, as one of my opponents said, that this is an irrational country that might sell nuclear weapons to other people one of these days. We don’t know what it might do. It might run off the ranch and do something crazy. How have we dealt with a country like that in the past? It is called deterrence. Deterrence is not an aggressive policy. It is not an offensive policy. It is defensive.
The deterrence argument is premised on the idea that if you bomb us, we will bomb you back. It is a very unattractive policy and no one likes it. It’s MAD or Dr. Strangelove; it’s a horrible thought, but this is the only policy we have right now that works. It is the only policy that we are capable of using now toward Putin’s Russia, which does not want to engage with us anymore. Russia today pumps out propaganda against us in all kinds of different ways in all kinds of countries, whether it’s, as Garry says, funding the Czech president’s election or funding the far right in France. This is a country that does not want to be part of our system anymore and has made that very clear.
What can we do? We can deter. We need to ensure that our awareness of Putin’s dictatorial practices goes all the way up to the Kremlin. And the word “cronies” is an important one. Because what are they? They are just a bunch of rich guys who are friends of his but are somehow very powerful. What other word do we have to describe them? We need to ensure that Putin’s cronies know we will respond if provoked. We don’t have a better policy.
I watched all of this happen; I’ve read the history of the Soviet Union; I’ve watched the transition and now we’re back to exactly the place I would have never wanted us to be. In some ways it is one of the great tragedies of my life.
VLADIMIR POZNER: I think we’re in a much worse place than we were, quite frankly, because back then there were two ideologies facing each other. Now there is no ideology in Russia.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Oh, yes there is.
VLADIMIR POZNER: No, for most people there isn’t. They don’t even know what the future holds, or what they are working for. Whether or not this was true back in the Soviet days is a different issue.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: The good old days!
VLADIMIR POZNER: No, those were terrible days, but it was an ideology from the beginning. You know as well as I do that the Red Scare was about ideology. It is no longer about ideology now. It is geopolitical. It is about whose interests are at stake.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: So why does this put us in a more dangerous position?
VLADIMIR POZNER: Because it is unpredictable. And something else has changed: back in the bad old days, there was real fear of nuclear weapons. Children hid under desks, and movies came out like The Day After. People were very aware. Today, people don’t even talk about nuclear weapons.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: Except in Poland.
VLADIMIR POZNER: It’s very dangerous. They’re not talking about them anywhere.
ANNE APPLEBAUM: That is not correct.
VLADIMIR POZNER: They’re not present in our conversations the way they used to be. And I think that’s a bad thing.
RUDYARD GRIFFITHS: I’m going to go to Garry to comment on this point and then I’m going to give Vladimir and Stephen the last word.
GARRY KASPAROV: I wish nobody ever had to talk about nuclear weapons. But Russian television has been talking about them over and over again for the last year, and threatening the West. What about those big billboards that promote turning America into radioactive ash?
VLADIMIR POZNER: You have one person saying that, come on.
GARRY KASPAROV: That’s Channel Two, Russian television: one person says it but 100 million people are watching and listening. Putin publicly says he would use nukes if the West stood up to him in Crimea.
VLADIMIR POZNER: He did not say he would use nukes.
GARRY KASPAROV: He did.
STEPHEN F. COHEN: They talked about going on high alert, but the United States has been on high alert a dozen times.
VLADIMIR POZNER: Let’s be a little bit more precise. He did not say he would use nukes. Khrushchev said, “We will bury you” back in the 1950s. Remember that?
GARRY KASPAROV: Yes. I read that in the books, and I’ve listened to Putin.
VLADIMIR POZNER: Do you even know the idiot who said that we’ll turn you into radioactive ash? His name is Dmitry Kiselyov and I saw him say it on television, so it wasn’t Putin. It’s as if you listened to Rush Limbaugh and he said something along those lines and you inferred that he represented the viewpoint of all Americans. If you’ll excuse me, this Dmitry guy is a jerk for saying such things.
GARRY KASPAROV: You are free to have jerks of all stripes on American television, but not in Russia. In Russia you are only allowed one.