Edward Fishman presents his insights on how sanctions became the preferred U.S. policy response to Russian aggression in 2014 and 2022, followed by Adam Stulberg’s discussion of the theoretical considerations that factor into the sanctions-related policy calculus. Edward Fishman is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council, and an Adjunct Professor of International and Public of Affairs at Columbia University. Adam Stu...
Jul 19, 2022•55 min
Panelists Rose Gottemoeller, Sam Charap, David Holloway, and Siegfried Hecker discuss the possible outcomes of the war in Ukraine as well as its grave implications for strategic stability and the global nuclear order.
Jul 19, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Liana Fix explains the international and domestic factors that have shaped Germany’s policy approach toward Russia since the 1990s, particularly in the spheres of security, energy, and conflict resolution. Dr. Liana Fix is a Program Director at the International Affairs department of Koerber Foundation in Berlin and a former resident fellow in GMF’s Washington office. She is a historian and political scientist, and her work focuses on Russia and Eastern Europe, European security, arms control, a...
Jul 19, 2022•45 min
Galip Dalay and Hanna Notte discuss Turkey’s geopolitical balancing act between the West and Russia, focusing on the cooperation and competition between Moscow and Ankara in such aspects as defense, energy, and conflict resolution.
Jul 15, 2022•56 min
Nikolay Kozhanov, Research Associate Professor at Qatar University’s Gulf Studies Center, presents his analysis of how MENA countries have perceived Russia’s role in the region since 1991.
Jul 15, 2022•50 min
Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, analyzes the two main pillars of U.S. policy toward Russia after 1991, explaining each administration’s rationale for following the grand strategy and how it led to crisis. This event was recorded via Zoom on July 8, 2022 as part of the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia.
Jul 12, 2022•48 min
Alexander Gabuev, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, discusses the foundations of the Russia-China relationship and its evolution against the background of the conflict in Ukraine. This event was recorded via Zoom on July 8, 2022 as part of the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia.
Jul 12, 2022•28 min
Henry Wang, Founder and President of Center for China and Globalization, speaks about the historical and current conditions that shaped the Russia-China partnership and proposes a multilateral path toward peace in Ukraine. The event is moderated by Alexander Gabuev. This event was recorded on July 8, 2022 as part of the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia.
Jul 12, 2022•36 min
Dr. Thomas Graham, distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, presents his insights on the situation in the world today, the objectives of Russia and the West, as well as the priorities of U.S. Russia policy going forward. This event was recorded via Zoom on July 6, 2022 as part of the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia.
Jul 11, 2022•45 min
This is a conversation about the notion of the free world, stemming from a May 6, 2022 Foreign Affairs article published by Peter Slezkine (East China Normal University). In this article, Slezkine argues that the Cold War idea of the free world maps only inaccurate onto the current war in Ukraine. Joining him to debate this idea are Anatol Lieven (Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft) and Jeffrey Gedmin (American Purpose), who offer their perspectives on the proper connections between the...
Jul 03, 2022•1 hr 30 min
This conversation takes up the work of two leading English-language journalists, Joshua Yaffa (The New Yorker) and Anton Troianovski (The New York Times), both of whom are covering the war in Ukraine. At issue is the challenges of covering this war, the difficulties of writing about Russia when so many non-Russian journalists have either left the country or been expelled, and the uses and abuses of information in this first major twenty-first century war.
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 13 min
In this Monterey Conversation, Michael Kimmage (The Catholic University of America), Olga Malinova (Higher School of Economics), Will Pyle (Middlebury College) and Jade McGlynn (Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies) examine the politicized memory of the 1990s and its role in shaping Russian society, attitudes towards the West, and sense of national humiliation. They contrast this with the economic reality of that era, outlining how the turbulence was used to fuel a sense of grievance and consi...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr
For this Monterey Conversation, Michael Kimmage (The Catholic University of America), Max Bergmann (CSIS), Hans Kundnani (Chatham House), Jade McGlynn (Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies) and Rachel Rizzo (Atlantic Council) explore the many European reverberations of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. This panel assesses the war itself as a threat to European security and the challenge the war presents to NATO and the EU as well as the long-term opportunities that may result f...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 24 min
The Ukraine Scenarios Since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine, many predictions about the course of the war have been put into question. In this conversation, Michael Kimmage (The Catholic University of America), Justin Vogt ( Foreign Affairs ) and Liana Fix (Koerber Foundation) will discuss the multiple pathways of this war - and the consequences for US and European security if the war doesn’t end.
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 20 min
Prisoners of History?: Memory, Myth-Making, and Russia’s War on Ukraine In this Monterey Conversation, Ivan Krastev (Centre for Liberal Studies), Jade McGlynn (Middlebury Institute), and Michael Kimmage (Catholic U.) discussed the role of historical myths in justifying Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as how the systemic flaws of the authoritarian power vertical in Russia contributed to masking reality and the extent to which analysts overlooked the role of emotion and messianism in Russian ...
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 26 min
Professor Serhii Plokhii, Director of Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, discusses the competing narratives surrounding Ukraine’s national identity – both their historical origins and their modern implications. This is Part 3 of a three-part lecture series, "Understanding Ukrainian History" which serves as an introductory module to the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia. Recorded via Zoom on June 27, 2022.
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 24 min
Professor Serhii Plokhii, Director of Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, discusses the competing narratives surrounding Ukraine’s national identity – both their historical origins and their modern implications. This is Part 2 of a three-part lecture series, "Understanding Ukrainian History" which serves as an introductory module to the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia. Recorded via Zoom on June 24, 2022.
Jun 28, 2022•1 hr 23 min
Professor Serhii Plokhii, Director of Harvard University’s Ukrainian Research Institute, discusses the competing narratives surrounding Ukraine’s national identity – both their historical origins and their modern implications. This is Part 1 of a three-part lecture series, "Understanding Ukrainian History" which serves as an introductory module to the Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia. Recorded via Zoom on June 22, 2022.
Jun 24, 2022•1 hr 30 min•Season 3Ep. 1
"But I think what I learned, perhaps it's most significant, I took away lessons that I think are valid all the way through all of my experience, were two or three important things. One, that Russia has its own culture, history, interests, values, and so forth. And they are not Americans. They are different from America. Their experience is different. Their geography is different. They face different issues. They have different aspirations in many ways. And that one has to start with the premise ...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 32 min•Season 2Ep. 6
"No Assistant Secretary ever suggested that to me before. I don't think I'd ever approached the question of writing the president United States a personal message from overseas. But Strobe believed that my judgment would be useful to the President, and that was, in itself, an honor." - Ambassador Thomas R. Pickering The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute introduces The Ambassadorial Series: Deans of U.S. - Russia Diplomacy, Part Two of The Ambassadorial Series. Pa...
Jan 24, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 4
"Just after Christmas I called on Ambassador Falin who then was head of the Central Committee, that he was known as Mr. Germany as far as their foreign policy is concerned, and I asked him, I said, 'I understand that you think this is a question for the future?' His answer was, 'We thought it was a question for the future, but it's clear now, it's one that's going to be resolved now.'" - Ambassador Jack F. Matlock The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute introduces ...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 16 min•Season 2Ep. 1
"Yeltsin was in a bit of a corner in all of this. I think he himself felt it was an absolute disaster to use a military option against Serbia. Now, were we prepared for this. Were the Americans, I think, sensitive enough to what this was going to mean? No, they weren't. I'm not sure we at the embassy even understood how deeply the reaction was going to go or how effective the people who were Yeltsin's critics were going to be in using what we did in Serbia against him and against the, if you wil...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 23 min•Season 2Ep. 5
"Shultz stood up other side of the table, put out his hands. And as they shook hands, Shultz said, 'Eduard let me assure you. I will never ask you to do something that I do not think is in your country's interest.' I had trouble keeping the tears back. I was at the table watching. The Cold War was over for those two." - Ambassador Jack F. Matlock The Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies at the Middlebury Institute introduces The Ambassadorial Series: Deans of U.S. - Russia Diplomacy, Part Two ...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 18 min•Season 2Ep. 2
"When Russian tanks went on the bridge over the Moscow River and fired at the Russian White House on October 3rd of 1993, the first thing that popped into my mind was, 'Are we going to have a civil war in Russia? And is it going to be as disastrous for the country as the civil war between the Reds and the Whites was after the end of the First World War and the beginning of the communist state?' I had a worry about that, that I don't think was misplaced. It was something that we all thought of as...
Jan 24, 2022•1 hr 19 min•Season 2Ep. 3
"We missed the one element of diplomacy that is absolutely critical in balancing some of these very sensitive relationships, and that's a level of connectivity and dialogue that allows both sides to frame the priorities and to get working toward some shared outcomes and solutions. So, in that empty environment, Russia and China came together, each having different interests in coming together." - Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr. The Ambassadorial Series is a one-of-a-kind docuseries featuring in-dept...
May 11, 2021•49 min•Season 1Ep. 8
"Russia had also, in the third term of President Putin, really started to turn inward. There was almost a feeling of withdrawal from the world. There were sanctions put on, of course, that blocked visas and tended to isolate Russia. Russia was not accepted into the G7. But there was the Foreign Agents law, there was an aggressive FSB effort to intimidate scientists and people who had foreign contacts. And it became very clear and accelerated during my time there." - Ambassador John F. Tefft The ...
May 11, 2021•50 min•Season 1Ep. 7
"We said we're not going to check our values at the door in order to negotiate with the Russian autocratic regime. We were pretty blunt. If anybody knows me, they know that I speak pretty bluntly about these things, and it's not my first rodeo dealing with Russian officials, 2009, I've been at this for a long time. We didn't call Medvedev a democratic leader of the free world; we didn't praise him. We said, 'We're going to do this deal here, and then we're going to talk about these other things ...
May 11, 2021•56 min•Season 1Ep. 6
"My dad is considered to be one of the few, maybe the only American G.I. who in World War II fought against the Germans in both the American and the Soviet armies …. He hid out for a couple of days until a Russian Tank Unit rolled into the small village, and then very carefully – my dad was a very shrewd guy – he found the right time to present himself to the Russian soldiers. He had a pack of Lucky Strikes cigarettes, and he knew a few words of Russian, two of which were amerikanskii tovarish, ...
May 11, 2021•58 min•Season 1Ep. 5
"We really saw opportunities, in the horrible tragedy, we saw opportunities to cement the kind of strategic partnership with Russia that we had been trying to build during the 1990s with Yeltsin. And of course we had, I think, tremendous public support for doing just that. I remember, I'll never forget, the outpouring of sympathy and solidarity by the people of Moscow. The whole country came converging on the old embassy building on Ulitsa Chaikovskovo with flowers, with candles, children leavin...
May 11, 2021•52 min•Season 1Ep. 4
"I think it was around two o'clock in the afternoon. I was asked to come over and receive a message from President Yeltsin at that time. That was also a fairly exciting time because we were inside the barricades. There were crowds of people, and when I went in the car to the White House with the flag, I didn't know whether they were going to throw rocks or cheer. Well, they cheered. In essence, the message was asking Washington not to recognize these self-proclaimed authorities, and to stay with...
May 11, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Season 1Ep. 3
