July 22, 2022
July 22, 2022

At the time Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, Russia supplied the European Union with some 40% of its natural gas, 25% of its oil, and nearly half of its coal. But as punishment for the war, most of Russia’s energy imports to Europe will be banned by the end of the year, along with sweeping sanctions that target banks, businesses, and oligarchs. Is that smart policy? Those who argue “yes” say Russia must be punished for its actions, democratic governments should be protected, and that accommodations only embolden Moscow. Those who argue “no” say isolating the Kremlin to this extent is a dangerous gamble, which could undermine Europe’s economies, push Russia further toward China, and lay the groundwork for an escalation. In this context, and in partnership with the German Marshall Fund, we debate this question, “Should we isolate Russia?”

 

 

 

12:00 PM Friday, July 22, 2022
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Background & History (6 RESOURCES)

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Military & Security Concerns (4 RESOURCES)

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Putin (4 RESOURCES)

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Russia at Home (4 RESOURCES)

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China (5 RESOURCES)

  • 00:00:00

    [music playing]

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    Hello, everyone; thanks for sticking around here for the last event of the forum. I’m David Ariosto. I’m the head of editorial of Intelligence Squared. I’ll be your host and moderator for tonight. But before we get started, I just want to thank the German Marshall Fund for having us here to do this all-important debate. You know, it’s, it’s something because of the timeliness of this topic that we wanted to focus on. Obviously, Ukraine and Russia are topping the headlines. But the place where we’re at is also highly relevant. NATO is just right up the road here. The SWIFT banking system, in which several Russian banks were banned, is also headquartered here.

  • 00:01:01

    And President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came here after his inauguration to petition for E.U. membership and for NATO membership. It’s also a place that is very much steeped in history in a broader sense. I know from a personal perspective my grandfather was wounded here, back in 1944, during the last major German offensive at the Second World War, the so-called Battle of the Bulge. And I remember him describing just how cold he was. And it got me thinking about the sacrifices that the men and women made during that conflict. And only a couple of years after that war, NATO was established with the intention of keeping war from Europe’s shores. And yet here we are about to debate what to do about yet another war on the European continent. And yet another winter is also coming this time, perhaps without the benefit of some of that Russian energy upon which many have relied. So, that is part of the reason we wanted to do this debate.

  • 00:02:00

    And should we, the transatlantic partners — that’s defined as we — isolate Russia? Let’s go ahead and now meet the debaters. First up, arguing Yes is Bulgarian politician Radan Kanev. Next up is his partner, former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, their opponents, Jonas Shaende, Chief Economist and Russia specialist, and joining us via Zoom, Emma Ashford of the Atlantic Council. So, the way this is going to go is each debater will have their time, in turn, to give an opening statement three minutes in length. And the first step was former ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul. Michael, the floor is yours.

    Michael McFaul:

    All right, three arguments in three minutes. One, I believe that for the transatlantic partnership, the United States, the liberal world, the free world, isolation is the better strategy to achieve our national and international interests than all the alternatives.

  • 00:03:03

    And I want to be clear about this. There’s a lot of confusion sometimes. Well, certainly, when I worked in the government for five years about means versus ends. Isolation is a strategy to achieve something, as is engagement; it’s important to define what are you seeking to achieve? What are your objectives? And I wouldn’t — this has changed over time over decades for my country. But I would argue today for the objectives that are most important for the United States of America, vis-a-vis Russia, isolation helps us achieve our objectives better than engagement. So, building a free and sovereign Ukraine, does engagement with Russia or isolation help us achieve that end? Obviously, in my view, isolation is better for achieving than dealing with China. Isolation, in my view, helps us achieve our long-term objectives vis-a-vis China rather than engagement with Russia.

  • 00:03:58

    Energy Security. I actually was in the Obama administration; I worked in the campaign we — I wrote a memo in the fall of 2008 on why we should seek energy independence from Russia. And because we still believe that engagement. We didn’t do that today. I think it’s crystal clear. Isolation helps us achieve that objective. And maybe in questions, we’ll get into others. Two more arguments I want to make as the clock ticks very quickly. Second, if you’re going to argue for engagement, and I’m just dichotomizing in the interest of time because there’s a — it’s on a spectrum, but if you’re going to argue for engagement, there are costs to engaging Mr. Putin today, particularly, I would say to the values that we’ve been talking about in this conference for the last two days, and particularly I would say for Europeans who do not have the same baggage that Americans do when talking about values. Are you going to normalize annexation in the name of getting along with Putin?

  • 00:04:59

    Are you going to forget about human rights and shake the hands of the guy that slaughtered millions of — not millions, hundreds of thousands of people in Mariupol? That’s a trade you have to take. And then third, it takes two to tango. And Putin is not interested in engagement. He likes isolation, and therefore pursuing engagement will lead to failure. Thanks.

    David Ariosto:

    Thank you, Michael McFaul.

    [applause]

    Next up, arguing no to the question, Should We Isolate Russia, is Emma Ashford.

    Emma Ashford:

    Thanks so much for having me. And thank you to the German Marshall Fund and Intelligence Squared. I’m happy to be here to talk about this important question, albeit in COVID isolation upstairs. So, my partner Jonas and I are going to argue that we in the West shouldn’t isolate Russia. We fully agree and acknowledge that there may be an excellent moral case for doing so, particularly given the barbarity of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

  • 00:05:59

    But we believe as well that there are many practical considerations in economic and political space that make it hard to believe that isolating Russia would be an effective approach for the West. And I’m going to give three core reasons during this opening statement. So, the first is that long-term political isolation of Russia and economic isolation is going to bring significant costs here at home for domestic politics in Europe and the United States. We have already seen this as the economic impacts of the Western sanctions are contributing to falling standards of living, adding to inflation, and have produced a backlash against incumbents in elections in France have produced turmoil in governments in Bulgaria and Estonia. And the far right has often been the benefits of these policies. So, we believe that Western liberal values here at home may actually be seriously impacted by a strategy of economically containing Russia.

  • 00:06:57

    A second point, long-term isolation of Russia, is also likely to be negative for domestic politics inside Russia. We’ve repeatedly seen over the years with sanctions various studies have shown that long-term sanctions regimes strengthen incumbents, weaken civil society, and allow authoritarian leaders, from Kim Jong-un to Fidel Castro, to blame outsiders for their own PERMIS Management. And we see in the last few months that this is what is happening inside Russia; sanctions appear to be strengthening Putin’s grip on power, not weakening it. And then a final political argument. We believe that ending the isolation of Russia as it is right now will actually be essential to a viable and lasting peace agreement over Ukraine. If Russia has no stake in a peace agreement, if they are excluded from European security in the longer term, they’re more likely to re-offend. And we only have to look at historical examples to see cases where this came true.

  • 00:07:58

    Consider Germany at the end of World War One, where the precise treaty imposed a punitive piece that helped to fuel the right; the rise of the far-right movement helps to cause another devastating war. But we also have positive examples of how to maximize containment and engagement together. Consider the Cold War; we saw leaders from Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher to others engage with the Soviet Union on key issues like arms control and International Security, even as they contain them in other areas. So, we believe that diplomatically isolating Russia, a more extreme policy than the one we pursued during the Cold War, is more likely to provoke a backlash in this space. And so, just to sort of sum up, you know, it may be morally satisfying to isolate Russia. But policymakers have to consider the potential consequences of their actions, and the consequences of continued isolation of Russia after the war could be severe. Thank you.

  • 00:08:58

    David Ariosto:

    Thank you, Emma.

    [applause]
    Next up arguing yes to the question, we should isolate Russia is Radan Kanev.

    Radan Kanev:

    Thank you, David. And let the first thank the German Marshall Fund and Intelligence squared for the rather undeserved honor to be here, which thrills me a lot. And then, I will start with brief history remarks on the issue of integrating or isolating Russia. And I do it not because I love history, which I do, but because Russia’s regimes in, multiple and especially Mr. Putin, particularly, are strongly preoccupied by history issues, and history is framing their political decisions quite often. So, the West has, for centuries, has this rather naive, even dangerous dream of integrating Russia into a real Ace international community.

  • 00:10:02

    And sometimes, the dream was fulfilled. Russia entered the international community in the end of the 18th century by taking the lion’s share from the partition of Poland. And this setting the pattern of its eventual integration attempts. Furthermore, Russia had at least two men on the moon moments in its integration in the international community, or I should rather say, one Cossacks in Paris moment and to a Bolsheviks in Berlin moment, after contributing in a really great part, to the military defeat of Napoleon and Hitler. Russia was first integrated as a main player in the so-called concert of powers in the 19th century and then became a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council in the 20th century.

  • 00:10:57

    And regretfully, in both cases, Russia uses this integration, this position, this new powers in order to subdue a press, and even try to erase a big part of Eastern Europe from the map of the world, and rather successfully. So, I’m speaking very much from a European perspective, from an Eastern European perspective, or even a Southeastern European perspective. And I think it is a very important one because Russian aggression is not a victimless crime. Every time there are victims, and from our point of view, the most important ones are those in Eastern and Southeastern Europe, although victims within Russia should not be underestimated. Since time is running out, I will use furthermore historical arguments, especially the one who loses in who wins when Russia’s regime is humiliated, as Mr. Macron said, but we will do it during our debate. Thank you.

  • 00:12:02

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    All right. And last but certainly not least, Jonas Shaende.

    Jonas Shaende:

    I am pleased to be here. Thank you, everyone, for being here. Thank you to the GMF for hosting this conversation. Intelligence Squared, I think, is a very important topic to discuss. And, of course, arguing the, you know, reading the room and arguing the unpopular position, I think is a little bit difficult. And I get it, and I get it, I get it. We want to respond to Russia. And much of this forum is about responding to Russia; there’s Russia, it’s doing things got to respond. Okay. Sure. What, you know, even the question of this debate, Should We Isolate Russia, it connotes that we must believe that, in fact, such isolation is possible to achieve.

  • 00:12:58

    And, you know, I just don’t believe so. And here’s why a series of really adverse economic actions were taken against Russia. And without giving much thought to the destabilizing, practical impacts of such actions on the global economy. And, you know, these actions were, and we can say, Now, absolutely unsuccessful in forcing Russia to reverse course in Ukraine. So, from this standpoint alone, these, you know, this policy of isolation has been ineffective. And that is the argument that I’m going to make today. In fact, I would say, even more, Russia is winning because of this economic isolation, a policy there, you know, the income from energy doubled for Russia, this year.

  • 00:14:00

    They have a very strong fiscal position. They can spend all the money they have, and they, you know, they can have a lot of grain they can eat, they can do a lot of things, and they have a lot of resources. And, well, I think they’re doing quite well. Conversely, elsewhere, we have a situation where everybody is feeling the pinch, particularly in Europe, we have rising inflation collapsing standards of living, and the industrial base of many European countries is built and particularly injured in Germany is built on cheap energy from Russia. Without the energy, this base is eroding. Now, I would say more there is one clear winner in this whole situation, and that is China.

  • 00:14:52

    China’s enormous resources, enormous labor pool coupled now strategically with the Russia Energy is going to probably, and I would say very likely, lead to the rise of a global competitor in Asia, that Europe and North America, our alliances will have a very difficult time to manage, it’s time to get pragmatic. And I encourage you to vote against this resolution.

    David Ariosto:

    All right, thank you very much, Jonas. And that concludes round one. We’re debating the question, of course, Should We Isolate Russia? We’re going to move now on to round two, which is the discussion now; debaters will be taking questions from me from each other as well; I’ve encouraged you to essentially ask questions of yourself. So, as I did not block am, I’m going to take a seat right here. That doesn’t mean I’m joining your team, Jonas. But —

    Michael McFaul:

    It’s a little suspicious to me.

    David Ariosto:

    Yeah. I was going to start off this conversation with you, Michael. But in light of what Jonas has said, I feel like I have to ask you some questions and sort of push back on this.

  • 00:16:01

    So, you said Russia is doing quite well. I’m wondering how you respond to questions of estimations of 10 to 15 percent, GDP decline, currency devaluations, and estimates across the military spectrum of wholesale decimation of many of their units. So, if you can quantify how they’re doing well, a bit more for us.

    Jonas Shaende:

    Well, if you talk about currency devaluation, and okay, I’m also a professor sometimes, but I’m also a policy person sometimes. So, I do math. Okay? And, you know, we can have many opinions about policy, what’s effective, what’s not, but math speaks for itself. The Russian Central Bank is lowering its interest rate, specifically to devalue the currency. They have enormous inflow of cash into Russia right now. They do not know what to do with it. Okay, there’s so much of it, they try to lower the rate of interest so that the ruble is depressed against the dollar, and they’re failing, they’re failing miserably.

  • 00:17:05

    We are dealing now with a strengthening Russian ruble that makes the imports cheaper for many Russian consumers and firms, and they’re doing fine while we are dealing with historically high inflation rates.

    Michael McFaul:

    Jonas, is that a short-term or long-term thing? What’s going to happen a year from now to this mathematical stuff you just talked about? After they’re cut off from the Europe for export.

    Jonas Shaende:

    In the long run, we’re all dead. But I —

    Michael McFaul:

    I said a year from now, not — I hope to be alive in a year. So, how about in a year?

    Jonas Shaende:

    If we don’t reverse course — and my colleague already mentioned this — it might lead — if you don’t change the policy, then the policymakers will be changed. And that is a grave danger for our political system, our democracies that sustain our way of life.

  • 00:17:57

    David Ariosto:

    Michael, do you want to respond to that? You seemed to jump in.

    Michael McFaul:

    in so many ways. Now, the — oh, the clock’s 17 minutes, I get 17 minutes. Right now?

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    It’s distributed.

    Michael McFaul:

    So, a couple of things. The reason I asked that question is I think it’s a very legitimate question. Russia has lots of money, the ruble’s strong. But whether that’s a short-term effect of the lag time between cutting off energy versus not. The G7 just announced a price cap yesterday or today. That’s coming. And so, in the long run, it’s a debate. I don’t think, in the long run, Russia is better off because of these policies now. And two, I think it’s a historic decision that Europeans have made to get off of Russian cheap energy. I think in the long run, Europe and the world and the climate, by the way, are all going to be better off from this isolationist step out. Short run, short-run pain, long term benefit, I think for Europe in the world. But number two, define Russia for me, Russians.

  • 00:18:58

    Putin, I got it. Putin is better. He’s got this money. He’s good. Is Nebula better off right now? Is Gehrman Greeff [spelled phonetically] better off right now? Are any of the Russian businesses in Russia — real private people, are they better off? Is Alexei Navalny better off? Who is benefiting from the things that you’re talking about?

    Jonas Shaende:

    Well, I think it is difficult to separate these kinds of things. I appreciate the question. When we talk about isolating Russia, I think we’re isolating Russia wholesale. Now, of course, if you elect — if you look at the budgetary picture in Russia, they have a very significant public sector. So, when I said that the public sector is very strong that the budget is very full, the coffers are full, that means that they’re able to me there are budgetary obligations. And ordinary people, ordinary people, the teachers, the doctors who are public sector workers in Russia, they are going to have their needs, you know, their needs met.

  • 00:20:03

    And they are not going to, you know, rise up. And I think the kind of magical thinking that we will inflict a lot of pain on Russia, and Russians will rise up and carry Vladimir Putin out of Kremlin, or he will die of cancer, or something happens. All of that magical thinking needs to be put to one side, and we need to engage Russia and engage the Russian regime in the matters of importance, not just to us but also to the world.

    David Ariosto:

    I want to take that point because we’re on the economic side of this argument here. There’s another side, the moral imperative, the peace process, and which Emma, you talked about quite a bit, but Radan, sort of a two-part question. One, we talked about isolating Russia. Is that feasible, given Brazil’s willingness to do business with Russia, India’s willingness to do business with Russia, China’s willingness to do business with Russia?

  • 00:20:58

    And then the second part of that question, I mentioned this in sort of the opening statement, winter is coming. Europe relies heavily on Russian energy. And we’ve already heard about rationing in Germany, potentially, Bulgaria, your home country, is a country that has historic ties to Russia. So, as you feel the pinch of these sanctions, there’s concern about how it might manifest politically as well. So, given that two-sided approach, how do you do this when so many other countries are doing business with Russia? And how do you do this when so many of your citizens might be suffering as a result of it?

    Radan Kanev:

    So, let’s start directly with the question of countries doing business with Russia. Europe is severely dependent on your Russian energy supply. And this is no news. So, here we have a huge problem as European policymakers. And the problem is we did not isolate Russia in 2014 when they annexed Crimea.

  • 00:22:02

    So, Europe starts buying more instead of isolating the clear aggressor who annexed the territory of a sovereign country. We started, especially Germany and Italy, we started buying more gas and encouraging him for the next step. The share of Russian gas imports in Europe rose from 32 to like 40 percent of the European market because we gave him like this price for invading Ukraine. But next, yes, we are dependent. We are overly dependent. But when it comes to natural gas, Russia is over 70 percent dependent on export to Europe through pipelines, pipelines they don’t have to China, and they obviously don’t have to Brazil, and they have very, very poorly developed LNG technology. So, they have nowhere to sell their natural gas if we cut it off. We have strong weapons that we don’t use.

  • 00:23:03

    But then, of course, comes the moral argument, which I find much more important. We are in the midst of aggressive war. And if we do nothing, because the proposal indeed is to do nothing, then what comes next? My country, Bulgaria, Romania, or Moldova, like the last one who is not in NATO and who comes after Moldova. We don’t have answers to this question. Yes, it’s painful. Yes, it hurts to impose sanctions, but we are in a war. We don’t want to engage the bully, then we isolate the bully. I don’t see the third way.

    David Ariosto:

    I’m glad you mentioned the moral aspect of this because this is something I want to take to you, Emma. In your opening statement, you sort of talked about the moral imperative in terms of the humanitarian aspect of this.

  • 00:23:54

    I’m wondering how you would respond to allegations, perhaps not toward you, but allegations of appeasement or conciliation in terms of, you know, if the Transatlantic Partnership does not act, then what we’ve seen with Georgia, what we’ve seen earlier in 2014, with Crimea and earlier incursions than Donbas and Luhansk, you know, if NATO is not willing to engage militarily, which seems clear, at least from a boots on the ground perspective, how do you respond to the question that isolation is sort of the next best move or perhaps the first best move?

    Emma Ashford:

    You know, the argument that I started to make in my opening statement, I think, which is that containment and isolation are not the same things. And I think we should be very clear about that. Deterrence and isolation are not the same thing. There are plenty of things that we in the West can do in order to militarily deter Russia from invading NATO countries in order to help countries like Moldova or, indeed, Ukraine after this war to defend themselves and make themselves too difficult for Russia to take action against.

  • 00:25:03

    But those steps don’t necessarily involve isolating Russia, cutting it out from the global system. And just to sort of going to this question of oil and gas, you know, I think you could make a good argument that Europe might be in a better place if it was not dependent on Russian gas or Russian oil. You could make that strategic argument. But I think we should also be clear that what we are doing there would not necessarily be hurting Russia over the long term. Oil is fungible; it is easy to ship oil supplies elsewhere in the world, gas supplies, as Radan noted, will take longer for new pipelines to be built. But my suspicion is that in the longer term, as you put it earlier, that those will shift as well. And what we’ll end up doing is having sort of a game of musical chairs where we all pay higher costs. And in five or 10 years, Russia is simply shipping the same resources to new customers for the same price.

  • 00:26:03

    David Ariosto:

    Michael, I wanted to go to you on that specific point —

    Michael McFaul:

    Yeah, because I have so many things I want you to go to.

    David Ariosto:

    But to add on to that question. If the transatlantic partnership if Europe has ended up paying for Russian gas Russian oil through a third party like India and ends up paying a higher cost for that, but ends up still putting money in the coffers of Moscow, or if the European continent ends up by buying more energy from partners, such as Saudi Arabia, which have their own history of human rights questions, then what are we really talking about here?

    Michael McFaul:

    Oh, there’s so many pieces of this that I disagree with. So, first of all, it’s not so easy to switch to oil and gas to other markets. Russia is paying a 30 percent — they’re getting back 30 percent less from that money. And to me, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. And that I think can continue with more isolation. If we don’t provide insurance for those tankers, the price is going to go up. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.

  • 00:27:00

    Remember, we’re talking about we were not talking about isolating Russia from the world. These kind of blurred it when you’re talking about what we can cut off from China and India, I don’t care about that, knock yourself out. You know, Mr. Putin, if you want to be a vassal of China, he always talks about the countries in this room, being a vassal state of the United States. That’s a phrase he loves, Vladimir Putin. If you want to do that at these reduced prices, it’s really bad for you and your economy, I don’t care about that. We’re talking about us, we. Right? That’s the first thing. The second thing is we have to run the counterfactual. We’ve been there, and we done that, right. 2008, we had exactly this debate in my country. I’m presuming we had it in other countries. And we decided, the Bush administration, not me personally, but they decided, oh, it’s too costly to sanction Russia, we need them for X, Y, and Z. Oh, and we don’t want to provoke the Russian bear; excuse me, I guess should spin around, right? We don’t want to provoke the Russian bear; we better not give them military weapons.

  • 00:27:58

    That’s the debate the Bush administration had in 2008. You mentioned 2014, same debate. And I had left the administration, but I had lots of friends in the administration at the time, it was exactly the same debate. We can’t sanction Russia because it’ll hurt our consumers. And if we, God forbid, we put javelins in western Ukraine and storage bases, that’s what the mighty Trump administration did, by the way, when they said we didn’t do anything that’s going to provoke the Russian bear. Look where we’re at, folks; it didn’t work. So, think about had we sent hammers and isolation in 2008, maybe we would have avoided this horrible, barbaric, costly war. Let’s leave — let’s leave the norms out. I’m happy to talk about norms later. But just from our pragmatic national security interest, is this war in the interest of the United States? My answer to that is no. Had we isolated Russia, Putin’s Russia, earlier, maybe we would have avoided this catastrophic loss.

  • 00:28:57

    David Ariosto:

    You said in the interest of the United States, Radan, and I just wanted to quickly go to the question with you, does this risk a broader stratification of the look of the global system with Russia — several Russian banks being banned from the SWIFT system? Does this further along the decoupling that we’ve seen between East and West? And what are the broader ramifications and consequences of that, if that’s true?

    Radan Kanev:

    I don’t think economically and, let alone politically, isolating Russia is really dividing the world on West Block and East blocked as it was. We are not in a new Cold War by a very simple reason. Today’s Russia is in times weaker than Brezhnev’s Soviet Union and still much, much more aggressive on the international scene, and here, I want to refer to Emma and what she said about President Reagan. My God, he did isolate the Soviet Union. He did isolate it for a very long period.

  • 00:29:58

    He blamed it as an empire of evil, and I lived in communist Bulgaria back then, and my God, we felt very, very isolated. I had Uncle Sam with his nuclear weapons attacking my school every day in the school newspaper, you know. So, it was a very tense situation, it was isolation, and it led to wreak havoc seven years later. So, it took really, really, it was a long shot. And it took a lot of expenses for defense. You remember the Star Wars, at least older people, like me, and so on. So, Reagan is a very good example in favor of what the West is doing now.

    David Ariosto:

    All right, so I want to take one more question to you, Emma, perhaps more than one. If not isolation, then what?

    Emma Ashford:

    Some mixture of deterrence to prevent future Russian aggression against NATO or against other European countries, combined with some level of post-war engagement.

  • 00:31:04

    And something we haven’t really talked about in the course of this debate is the timescale that we’re talking about. I think you know that there’s not necessarily a great argument for changing course for the West this instant. But in thinking about how we bring an end to the conflict, we should be thinking about how to build some engagement with Russia, how to use the lifting of some of the sanctions that are in place to actually buy concessions to Ukraine at the negotiating table as this war ends. And then think about how, in the long run, we deter Russia. I think that’s a more effective approach, sort of a phased approach to ending the war and moving past it, rather than necessarily just talking about sticking with the approach that we have ad infinitum.

    David Ariosto:

    Jonas, I want to ask you the same question. If not isolation, then what?

  • 00:31:56

    Jonas Shaende:

    Well, let me just tell you that it’s always fascinating to listen to tenured professors and bureaucrats talk about —

    Michael McFaul:

    Which one am I?

    [laughter]

    Jonas Shaende:

    Both. But, you know, I think it’s, it’s fascinating to hear them say, well, you know, there’s going to be a little bit of unemployment, there’s going to be some hurt for the consumers, you know, let’s just, it’s okay. It’s worth it. There are people out there, real people who, you know, millions of them are going to lose jobs, they’re going to lose livelihoods. And this is self-harm. We’re talking about isolating a country, and usually the isolation, you know, the sanctions, usually they work when the target is small. You can — you can deal with it more effectively. But when it’s large, like Russia, we heard yesterday that the size of the economies like Spain or Benelux, that is very misleading. Because if you recalculate it with the purchasing power parity, then you’re going to get to $7 trillion. When you take a look at the Russian economy and realize that it’s under-monetized, then you’re going to get to $9.5 trillion, that’s not nothing.

  • 00:33:09

    And besides the size of the economy, besides the oil and gas, we’re talking about significant network effects. Because Russia is very, very much integrated into the commodity markets, the primary and secondary commodity markets, it’s, it’s number one on gas, number one and oil fertilizer, number one wheat, together with Ukraine, number one. Palladium, nickel, I mean, all of these things, we need those things, and you know, and those commodities, if you want to have the split in the world and a severe de-globalization into the two worlds, the West and the Rest, then it is quite achievable, because oil is going to be consumed and gas will be consumed, just not here. And here, we’re going to have inflation, and unemployment, and all those things that can destabilize our society. So, if not isolation, cooperation where it makes sense.

  • 00:34:09

    David Ariosto:

    I want to go for one last question here. Michael, I want to go to you on this; you can respond to what Jonas said. But I also want to throw something that’s sort of the elephant in the room here is China. Does a move towards isolation on Russia take the ball off China — take the ball off the pivot to Asia that was started during the Obama years?

    Michael McFaul:

    No, just the opposite. And the idea that we’re going to peel away Putin to contain China was a fantasy before the war, and it’s a fantasy for the rest of the time that Putin is in power. So, I think that’s not a very interesting issue. Number two, I would just say there are many factors that lead to inflation and unemployment. To say that sanctions against Russia is the driver, I think there are a lot of economists that would disagree with that analysis, at least in my country. So, remember, there’s lots of things to that, sir. I agree with you, Jonas —

    Jonas Shaende:

    We come from the same country.

  • 00:35:00

    Michael McFaul:

    No, you’re not going to argue — you surely would not argue that the causes of American inflation today are the sanctions on Russia. There are many factors, including spending. But I just, I want to get to things. I’m more than an expert on it. But I don’t think that’s the whole story. And I would just remind you that the American people actually do support isolation of Russia so far, Putin’s Russia. So, if we believe in the American people, we should support isolation. But I want to get to a much more bigger issue.

    David Ariosto:

    All right, wrap it up because we’re almost out of time here. Or we are out of time.

    Michael McFaul:

    If the argument is we should be just like Ronald Reagan, as Emma kind of alluded to, then we are in agreement, Emma, I completely agree. But we need to know what historical metaphor that implies. Okay? And I think there’s a bit of maybe a bit of a disagreement about that. On engagement, it’s chapter 27 of George Shultz’s memoirs, it’s called Reengaging Realistically the Soviets. I know he was my neighbor for 30 years. And what he says there, and I hear we agree, and I’m sorry if that violates your rules, but on nuclear weapons, on nuclear weapons, of course, we need to talk to the Russians.

  • 00:36:05

    And, of course, we need to follow on to the New START Treaty. But on other things he did == they put a lot of pressure on him. And then there was — George Shultz liked to talk about the personal moment where they deliberately tried to push the Soviets to get a better deal. And I think that’s the metaphor — that’s the metaphor I have in my mind. And the last thing I want to say, because I took issue with the word Russia. And Emma’s right, I know the sanctions literature, I am an academic, I teach it, I would just say it’s very complex for all the times that it’s failed. There are — the case of South Africa; there is the case of Milosevic. It’s complex. And my answer to that is if you’re worried about isolating Russians, and the opposition, let’s listen to what they want. And you know what Alexei Navalny wants? He wants more sanctions, more isolation of the Putin regime. And that’s why I think we should be with Alexei Navalny on that very particular part of that question. And finally, don’t forget, Gorbachev came after all this period. If Putin was Gorbachev, this would be easy. Putin is not Gorbachev.

  • 00:37:07

    David Ariosto:

    I want to congratulate all of you, first of all, for maintaining the civility that — during that exchange; it’s part of I think the tone and tenor of what we try to do in these debates is that we can certainly disagree and disagree with a certain degree of fervor, and still maintain a certain degree of civility. I’m being told I’ve got time for just one more question. So, I want to pose this to you, Radan; this is a hypothetical question. If tomorrow, Putin decided, you know, what we’ve taken all the territory that we want. We’ve carved out a portion of Luhansk and the Donbas, war is over. Would isolation at that point stop for you?

    Radan Kanev:

    No, and it should not, because successful invasion of Crimea and our passive behavior led us here. Successful annexation of Donbas and our passive behavior will lead us to Kyiv.

  • 00:38:03

    And Kyiv will lead us to verso or to Bucharest or to Sofia. And that’s something quick and not allow whatever the economic price, by the way.

    David Ariosto:

    I suppose we have one more opportunity, Emma, and I figured, since you’re coming to us remotely from a hotel room here, you have the last word.

    Emma Ashford:

    Sure. Yeah. Let me make two points, I guess. So, the first is that you know, Radan, you may be right about Russia’s intentions, and you may be wrong. There’s no way to know this upfront. But even if you’re right, it’s not clear to me that economic isolation is the best way to deter Russia from future military action. After all, sanctions after Crimea did not deter Russia from building up its military. It’s very hard to deter any determined oil and gas exporter from doing so. And just to add one point to what Jonas said earlier about the costs, we are talking primarily in this debate about whether the West should isolate Russia.

  • 00:39:01

    And we’ve brought China into it. We haven’t really talked about everybody else. And there are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, there are countries in the Middle East that are probably going to face famine over the coming years because of the isolation of Russia. And so, we do also need to think about those impacts. Those impacts are not merely ones we’re deciding for ourselves. They’re ones that we are through the way second secondary sanctions work, imposing on other countries that may be far less able to cope with these impacts than we are.

    David Ariosto:

    And that concludes round two of this debate. We’re going to go to closing arguments now. And so, first up, Radan Kanev, Should We Isolate Russia?

    Radan Kanev:

    Thank you. So, what I heard from our honorable opponents are mainly two arguments. The bully is far too strong, so we’d better accommodate him, and the bully is doing quite fine economically.

  • 00:39:58

    So, I will end this debate from my side with an example from my own country. We have strong pro-Russian feelings in Bulgaria, we have very strong economic ties, and all the way around, we try to accommodate; we build the TurkStream, we opposed European sanctions, we declined the possibility to send weapons directly to crime all about accommodating. The final result was that we were the very first European country to have its gas supply cut off. That was the result of accommodating. And then just the final sentence about the economic wellbeing, after our gas was cut off, we still pay our debts. And Russia yesterday defaulted on its. That’s it.

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    Efficient. Next up, arguing whether we should isolate Russia is Jonas Shaende.

  • 00:41:02

    Jonas Shaende:

    So, we talked very well. And you probably know what I’m going to say already. But I’m not going to say that. What I’m going to say is this. You know, Putins, they come, and then they go, right, but Russia remains, and Russian people remain. And with all this talk and excitement about the hostility and mistrust towards Russia, I think it’s very easy to lose the forest behind the trees, that the relationship that needs to be built needs to be built, not so much with Putin. And we need to consider the rest of Russia and Russian history. Now, you were behind, Radan, the Iron Curtain, and you felt isolated. I was behind the Iron Curtain, too, I remember.

  • 00:41:59

    I remember, you know, behind the Iron Curtain reading the American Constitution, stuff, you know, it hits you like a ton of bricks. It’s very important and it’s very inspirational. And I was inspired. And I was forever inspired by the American Constitution and by the values encapsulated in it. And right now, I don’t know. I don’t know what a six-year-old kid is going to do in Russia when people like my honorable colleagues say that Russia is bad, not Putin is bad. Russia needs to be isolated. Not Putin needs to be isolated. We need to disengage with Russia and with the Russian people. I don’t know if that’s good for strategically building the relationships so that we can invite Russia into the family of nations, where the people in Russia see the West not as the enemy but as a friend and as a destination for their democratic ideals. Thank you.

    [applause]

  • 00:43:08

    David Ariosto:

    All right. Thank you join us. Next up, Michael McFaul.

    Michael McFaul:

    I didn’t know there was a third round; I thought we were done. Jonas, you and I agree on a couple of things. First of all, I disagree, Putin comes and goes. I think this notion that countries behave in certain ways because of their culture and history. The last 30 years of the Soviet history and Russian history don’t support that hypothesis. I already said Putin is no Gorbachev. He’s also no Yeltsin. He’s even not a Medvedev. I think this notion that Russia is this way because Putin is that way, I radically disagree with. And in response to how Russians are feeling, I deliberately named two state actors, Nebula and [unintelligible]. They don’t like this word.

    Jonas Shaende:

    They’re good people.

    Michael McFaul:

    I’m agnostic if they’re good or bad, I know them. But the notion that they’re that this is a good thing, and they survive, I don’t think I can’t think of anybody that thinks this war is a good thing.

  • 00:44:02

    Nikolai Patrushev, there’s one guy I think that thinks this war is good. I don’t know if anybody else in Russia that thinks it’s good. But I want to get to your fundamental point, which is where we do agree. This is a tragic debate for me personally, right. I had lived in the Soviet Union; I was part of trying to integrate Russia into the West, trying to build democracy there in the ’90s. And we’re here at a very tragic moment, I think, in world history. And for me, personally, I have thousands of Russian friends who have six-year-olds, by the way, who are cut off. And this is a tragic moment for them and for us, but I just think it’s naive to think that we’re going to bring Putin back in and everything’s going to be fine. We did that. We tried that. He saw that as weakness. And that’s the way he’ll see it again. In part, that’s why this war is here because he saw weakness in 2008, he saw it in 2014 and in Syria in 2015.

  • 00:44:58

    And he expected again, now, so now we have the right response. Let’s do it for the long haul, especially for those six-year-olds, because they should be integrated in a post-Putin Russia, and we get back to the business of integration, but not while Putin is in power.

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    Okay, thank you, Michael. And last but certainly not least, Emma Ashford.

    Emma Ashford:

    Well, I’d like to start by thanking my fellow debaters for what is, I think, a difficult conversation and a difficult question. And so, you know, I could end here by telling your arguments again, right, I could tell you that it’s not possible to isolate Russia, I could point to $5 gas prices, I could point to the fact that support in the United States has dropped 15 percent for punishing Russia in a month, I can point to the fact that it’s going to carry significant costs for the U.S. for the rest of the world. Costs that I believe will come in values, not just in economic terms.

  • 00:45:56

    Or I could point out that there are other ways to handle Russian aggression, or that even that I don’t necessarily think that isolating Russia is actually going to change the regime as Michael has sort of implicitly suggested. But I guess I would just end with what I think is the most important argument here and it’s this. You know, wars are horrible. The war in Ukraine is a brutal, barbaric, awful, unnecessary war. But wars rarely end through absolute victory by one side. And we need to think about a durable peace and how we achieve it. And so, I would argue that instead of isolating Russia forever, we should be thinking about how to use the measures that we’ve taken so far as a bargaining chip to get to a peace deal and to build more durable peace afterwards.

    [applause]

    David Ariosto:

    Excellent. All right. And that concludes round three. Now it’s time to find out who argued best. What we’re looking for is the difference between the first and the second vote to see who has changed the most minds.

  • 00:46:59

    And here it is. The motion, Should We Isolate Russia before the debate in live polling of this audience, 65 percent of you agreed with the motion, 17 percent were against, and 18 percent were undecided. Those are the first results. Now, remember, we’re looking for the difference between that first and second vote. How many of you have changed your minds? And here are the results. So, for the team arguing in support of the motion, the first vote, 65 —

    [laughter]

    Michael McFaul:

    We changed nobody.

    David Ariosto:

    The second vote is 66, this side, one percentage point. Now to the other side. How many of you did they sway tonight? Let’s see the team arguing against the motion. The first vote was 17 percent. The second vote was 31 percent. That side pulled up 14 percentage points. That’s enough. The team who argued no to the motion Should We Isolate Russia changed the most minds. But remember, that’s just the vote tonight. We’re going to keep this vote open to our broader audience in terms of the broader listening audience on National Public Radio, on podcasts, and online.

  • 00:48:03

    And so, millions of listeners all around the country all around the globe will have a chance to vote and weigh in on this incredible debate. So, I just want to say thank you for joining us. Thank you to debaters for having a wonderful conversation. And thank you to the audience here for participating and keeping it civil.

    From all of us at Intelligence Squared, good night.

    [music playing]

    [end of transcript]

Pre-Debate

AGAINST THE MOTION
20%
FOR THE MOTION
62%
Undecided
18%

Post-Debate

BIGGEST SHIFT

AGAINST THE MOTION
32%
FOR THE MOTION
63%
Undecided
5%

Breakdown

BIGGEST SHIFT

AGAINST THE MOTION
32%
AGAINST THE MOTION
Change in voter behavior
19% - Remained on the Side
7% - Swung from the Side
6% - Swung from Undecided
FOR THE MOTION
63%
FOR THE MOTION
Change in voter behavior
1% - Swung from the Side
54% - Remained on the Side
8% - Swung from Undecided
Undecided
5%
Undecided
Change in voter behavior
0% - Swung from the Side
4% - Remained Undecided
1% - Swung from the Side
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