Good morning everyone. My name is Bill Burns. I'm the President of the Carnegie Endowment. It is my great pleasure to welcome all of you to the launch of an important book by my friend and colleague, Dmitry Trenin. Like many of you, I've spent a good bit of my career working and living in Russia. I served in Boris Yeltsin's Russia, a country full of democratic promise, but flat on its back economically and wrestling with a profound sense of humiliation. I returned a decade later as ambassador to Vladimir Putin's Russia. This was a country transformed, full of swagger, surfing on $100 a barrel oil, thirsty for control and order, and hungry to reassert itself as a major power. I witnessed my share of ups and downs in the U.S.-Russia relationship, including the reset efforts in the first term of the Obama administration and mounting tensions in the second term over Russia's aggression in Ukraine, its support for Assad's war crimes in Syria, and its reckless application of cyber tools. Throughout this complicated journey, I learned a great deal from Dmitry. Simply put, I can't think of a better analyst of Russia and its foreign policy, and I can't think of anyone more thoughtful about the drivers of Russia's behavior today and its implications for the future of global order. In his book, Dmitry provides his characteristically independent, informed, dispassionate, and nuanced portrait of Russia, full of its insecurities, grievances, contradictions, ambitions, and self-inflicted wounds. He is equally unflinching about Washington's missteps and misjudgments, and he is exacting in his sketch of the contours of the new normal of mutual adversity. Dmitry does not just admire the problem and the very real risks of this new predicament. He also offers practical ideas on how to navigate this complicated landscape, prevent further backsliding, and maintain channels of communication and cooperation, and manage tension. Dmitry's book exemplifies what institutions like Carnegie can do to help policymakers cope with the storm and stress of today's world. Provide a frame, widen the aperture, look beyond the horizon, offer fresh ideas and shape solutions. Dmitry does all this and more in his own work and through his leadership at the Carnegie Moscow Center, and he's very fortunate to have Andrew Weiss as his partner here in Washington. Together, they have rebuilt and revitalized Carnegie's work in this part of the world, connected it firmly to our other global centers, and elevated new voices from the next generation of thinkers and doers. I'm proud of what they've accomplished together, and I very much look forward to their conversation this morning. So please join me in giving a very warm welcome to Andrew Weiss and Dmitry Trim. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Bill, for that very generous introduction. It's a real privilege to be here on stage with Dmitry, who I've known and admired for a long time, and in the last three or so years, I've been able to be a colleague and a close collaborator with. It's a real joy to see so many familiar faces in the room today. It's also nice to have a break from the conversation about should we fear Donald Trump to a conversation about should we fear Russia. So it's a nice pivot. But in all seriousness, I encourage everyone to pick up the book. There's an order form, I think, that was distributed on the table. We're meeting a couple days before publication date, but if you order it with the form that's been provided, I've got a little visual cue here to give you about that. If you use the form, you can get a discount. So anyways, I really encourage people to read it. I've read it myself in recent days, and it's another tribute to Dmitry to be as prolific as he is. He really sets the standard within Carnegie as a whole in terms of the ability to produce on a recurring basis. Really important must-read material in the book is no exception to that. Coming to the topic at hand, and my hope in terms of how organized today's discussion is, I'll ask Dmitry a few questions to get things going. But given the kinds of people in the room today, I very much hope it'll be a real conversation that includes everyone here. On the Trump factor, you've been, I think, a pretty unusual Russian voice in the last three weeks, and that you have not been popping champagne corks. And you've really been looking at the fundamental reasons why the U.S. and Russia have such a complex and recently such a lousy relationship. And I'm scared to sort of draw you out a little more about why you've been somewhat downbeat in the wake of what it's been, I think across the board politically in Russia, a sense of elation, a sense of, you know, that something bad has been averted and that something really promising awaits. Well, Andrew, first of all, good morning, everyone. I'm really thankful to all of you who've beaten the rain and come here. It's a really great pleasure for anyone, any author, to have so many people of such caliber in this room this morning. First of all, I want to thank Bill Burns for his words. I'm not sure I deserve everything that he has said, all the praise that he has heaped on me, but I very much appreciate everything that he has said and even more of what he has done and what he is doing. So with these words, let me turn to your question. I think that there was a sigh of relief in my soul in a way when I heard the very unexpected result of the election. I learned at Spasso House. Actually, we were brought together, a few of us, by the Ambassador, John Teft, to watch the results. And of course, everyone was including myself. Of course, we're surprised to hear the result of the election. But frankly, I was much more downbeat prior to the election. I was thinking, and I was writing about it, that the United States and Russia found themselves within striking distance of actually hitting each other. And I was very concerned that that trajectory continued. There was an increasing likelihood of the United States and Russia engaging in what I would call kinetic collision in Syria, in the skies over Syria. I'm still worried about that, but slightly less so. That's one reason for being a little bit relieved at hearing the result, that there is potentially an opportunity to somehow change the trajectory. Which to me was still continues to be pretty dangerous. But beyond that, I never bought the idea of Donald Trump being somehow favorably predisposed toward Russia. I never thought that he was Putin's favorite to win. I don't think that Putin was seriously thinking of Trump winning the election. I think he was as surprised in the Kremlin as people were elsewhere at the result. But there are lots and lots of questions that people have no answers for at this point. And fundamentally, the relationship is unchanged. As Bill Burns has said, it's an adversarial relationship and it's going to stay adversarial. And the change of president in Washington does not change that. There are more uncertainties. But some of the old certainties perhaps could be voided. We could dodge the bullet in Syria. And thank God for small favors. But just one comment on what you've said. The champagne in Moscow was not so much for the victory of Donald Trump. It was mostly for the defeat of Hillary Clinton. And Hillary Clinton was universally seen in negative light by the political class in Russia. So it's more of a schadenfreude. It's less of exuberance with regard to Donald Trump's victory. So if we extrapolate a bit from your suggestion that this is going to remain a competitive or adversarial relationship, what are the lessons of this most recent period? It seems to me, and I just say this rather bluntly, that the lessons are that meddling in U.S. elections is okay, that military intervention on behalf of a bloody dictator like Assad can transform the battlefield, but maybe not change the Middle East, but at least change the course of the Syrian conflict. It's okay to annex your neighbor, or to your neighbor's territory, et cetera, et cetera. And so if, as you know, the discussion in Washington had focused largely in the run-up to the election on forms of pushback or containing that threat, it seems that we're setting ourselves up, potentially, for a new phase where the lessons of the past couple of years are bold steps, reckless risk-taking bold steps can really pay off, at least in the short term. Well, they can. And I think that there are lots of small lessons that can be drawn from that, but I would highlight something else. There was a fundamental change of paradigm in the relationship back in 2014. And the one lesson for us, for all of us, I think, is not to continue to apply the measuring sticks that we used to apply to the relationship between, let's say, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Crimea operation, or annexation, or however you want to call it, to the current period in U.S.-Version relations. You talked about competition. This competition takes all sorts of forms, from cyberspace to airspace over Syria. And basically, we have no rules of the road at this point. And if you can do something, and if the payoff is higher than the cost that you're likely to pay for it in the foreseeable future, go for it. Of course, there are certain limits. Of course, no one wants this ultimate collision. Nuclear deterrence works and will continue to work. But apart from that, it's a very competitive relationship. And it extends to all spheres, from cyberspace to outer space to geopolitical space, information space being one of the most hotly contested territories. And in that book, I argue that the analogies that people draw between the situation today in U.S.-Russian relations and the situation during the Cold War are misleading. Because if you accept the analogy, you'll be looking for things to happen that will not happen because the world is different. And you'll be missing the things that will happen because they did not exist in the times of the Cold War. This situation today could be more dangerous at times than the situation during the Cold War. And we have to be able to digest that and prepare ourselves for this competition which I see lasting a number of years. One area that you didn't, if I remember correctly, go into great detail in the book is the collapsing arms control edifice. And we've seen, especially from Mr. Putin and from other senior members of the Russian leadership, a whole set of talking points about nuclear weapons that are a break with previous post-Cold War and Cold War era norms, where there's talk about escalate to de-escalate, there's talk about even putting nuclear forces on alert during the Crimea annexation operation and bringing nuclear weapons into view as something that might actually be used as opposed to, as you said, the ultimate deterrent for direct confrontation with the United States. What's changed in your mind in how this generation of Russian leaders and the people who are likely to succeed them think about nuclear weapons? And is that something that we should be afraid of? Because I personally think it is. Well, I think, Andrew, that there are three things, well, there are many things, but let me highlight three things that are different today from the Cold War situation and that make the world a more dangerous place. One is the huge asymmetry that exists between the United States and Russia. And this asymmetry calls for a different kind of a toolbox and different kind of tactics that the weaker party, in this case Russia, will be using to compensate for its material weakness. This is something that you've got to expect unless you're expecting Russia to surrender, which I would not recommend. The second thing is the utter lack of respect for each other's leadership. And whereas Putin, President Putin, is routinely demonized in much of the mainstream global media, or Western media, Western leaders are openly lampooned by the Russian state-run media. And I'm not sure which is worse. Never in the Cold War did we have such disrespect for the other party's leadership or the other party's political class. And this is serious. And thirdly, there's a tendency to think, despite all the references to deterrence, that somehow nuclear weapons are out of the equation, that unlike in the Cold War, they are obsolete, they're the day before yesterday's weapons, and they're somehow out there, but even to refer to their existence would be a sort of, it's not a crime, but something that should not be done in international affairs today. Well, I would question that. And I think Mr. Putin, when he sees Russia being treated as if it were not a nuclear power, or should I say nuclear superpower, I see him reaching into his inner pocket and putting his nuclear gun on the table for everyone to see. And that produces the effect that you referred to. In the paradigm of 98, excuse me, 89, 14, that would have been outrageous, because that was the paradigm of prevailing cooperation between Russia and the West. In today's paradigm of prevailing adversity and competition rather than cooperation, even confrontation between Russia and the United States, this is something you don't have to excuse yourself for in the Kremlin's logic. So that's another thing that basically tells us that today's situation is more dangerous, or can be more dangerous, than what we had during the Cold War period. I wanted to shift the conversation a little bit to an issue that Ambassador Burns mentioned in his introduction, which is your skill at looking at the domestic drivers as well of where Russia's going and Russian foreign policy. We saw in the last two to three years since the aggression against Ukraine a real focus on sort of mobilizing patriotic nationalist groups inside Russia, using them as proxies in kinetic activity and covert activity in Ukraine. The idea of Russia being a besieged fortress has had a recurrent benefit to the regime over the last 16, 17 years. The idea that we were surrounded by enemies and only by coming together can Russia defend those enemies. And that's all obviously beneficial to Putin's continued time in office. Does that have to change in light of what we're seeing both in the United States and in the weakening of European views and responding to Russia in the wake of the Ukraine crisis? Or does that become kind of just fixed and we should assume that that sort of adversarial logic has to be part of Russian foreign policy? Well, I think that this confrontation has become a major factor in enhancement of Russian nationalism. But it was not the source of Russian nationalism. I think Russia, having stopped being imperial as a result of the collapse of the Soviet Union and its fear of influence and ultimately itself, after a period of shock in the 1990s, Russia has gone down the path of nationalism, which is something that empires go through when the empire is gone. This nationalism was evident, I think, since the latter half of the 2000s. Putin's current term was started with a series of steps that I called a policy of sovereignization, expunging all elements of foreign influence in Russia. Coming up with a unified view of Russian history and tons of other things, promoting orthodoxy as the binding glue, patriotism and the orthodoxy as binding glue of modern Russia. And I guess that background, which in my view preceded by many years the crisis in Ukraine and the confrontation between Russia and the United States, this mobilization has played a massive role in dramatically enhancing all that. So that's what we see. There are two things that I believe the Kremlin is highlighting. One is enhancing the unity of Russia, which is still in many ways a brittle place and restoring Russia's status as a major power in the world. In fact, I think that if Mr. Putin's priorities were to be summarized in the most succinct way, I would say he is about keeping Russia in one piece and elevating it back to an international level where it belongs in his view. So yes, it's played a major role, but it was not the source. And I would very much oppose the view that Russia's foreign policy was primarily designed to enhance the stability of the regime at home. I think there is a view, but I think it confuses the source and the effect. I think it certainly helps that. It certainly helps the consolidation of the political system and Putin's popularity at home, but it was not designed originally that way. It was something else. So let's look to the future and I'll ask one more question before opening things up. If we assume that the election of Donald Trump represents an opportunity to at least halt the slide towards some form of collision and maybe creates an opportunity for improving the relationship on a holistic basis, where is that likely to happen? I think part of what happened with the Obama era reset is that most of the promising low-hanging fruit had been picked, and even before Snowden showed up in the Moscow airport, there was a sense of lack of direction and lack of obvious next steps. If you go down to major themes of U.S.-Russian potential cooperation, there aren't too many obvious promising areas. People like President-elect have talked about Syria. There's a broader question about perhaps Iranian dunia polarization and the fate of the JCPOA. But it's hard for me to come up with a great list of promising areas where Russia and the United States, let alone Russia and the West, are going to be cooperating anytime soon. Do you feel differently about that? I do. Again, I would go back to my earlier thesis about the change of the paradigm. I will be not looking for ways to improve the relationship. You can improve cooperation, but what do you do with adversity? You learn to manage it. You don't try to reduce the adversity unless, in doing so, you achieve some of the goals, some of the objectives that you've set yourself. I think that under the current circumstances, the best one could hope for is that Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin find a common language to relate to each other, not necessarily to come up with new projects of cooperation or solutions to this or that issue. They think if they somehow manage to understand each other, where each leader is coming from, that would be good for the relationship in the sense of providing it with a bit more stability, a little bit more of predictability. If that happens, I think I would be satisfied with the wrong word, but it would be a good thing in my view. That language that I've referred to can be only described as transactional. You don't talk about values. You don't talk about domestic stuff. You don't talk about a lot of other issues. You address issues from the point of view of those who want to make a deal or at least want to preserve the status quo or want to avoid the worst becoming a reality. Such a relationship, in my view, exists between, let's say, Russia and Israel. They don't see eye to eye to a lot of issues in the Middle East starting with Iran, but they've developed Russian leaders and Israeli leaders have developed a common language in which they perfectly understand where each side is coming from and they manage to keep their relationship more or less on an even keel. I do not suggest that this is a model that can be used in U.S.-Russian relations. It can't. But to a degree, finding a common language could make the relationship more predictable and we'll see whether this is possible. I'm not suggesting that it cannot be done. I think it might be done and if it's done, it will be a good thing in my view. Let me challenge you on that because I think so much of Russia's view of itself as a great power does ultimately fall back on the idea that it needs a sphere of influence and that big powers should make decisions and little guys get out of the way. And there's so much about that that will be a source of heartbreak and to me, simply unacceptable. And the temptation may be that problems will go away if you make those deals, but the reality is that problems won't go away. And I'm just curious what makes you feel that this time it's different. Well, I think that the president-elect is different from his predecessors. He speaks a different language. He is someone who at least, again, to a superficial observer like myself is a deal-maker. And if that's the case, then I think from what I know about Vladimir Putin, I think that there can be some sort of an understanding between them. But I'm not suggesting that the relationship will somehow be transformed. It won't be. I'm not suggesting that the issues will go away. They won't. I think that Ukraine will remain an issue through my lifetime and beyond that. I think by talking about decades and I think that the relationship between Russia and Ukraine will remain extremely adversarial for a very long time. Syria, you can only do a few things with it jointly. And even that is not enough. The U.S. and Russia cannot between the two of them bring peace to Syria even if they tried very hard. They need others to collaborate. And it's not a given that the others will join on U.S.-Russian agreed terms. And many other things will not change. I think that the very negative attitude of a lot of people in the political classes of both countries toward each other will not change. And that's a major issue. So, no, I'm not suggesting that the relationship will be transformed. But as I said at the very beginning, I set the bar very low. To me, the most important thing is to avoid this kinetic collision. Because in my thinking, we've been living with the possibility of a war between the United States and Russia this fall. There's nothing more important than that. In my view, my book, maybe I'm wrong. But that's where I set the bar. Okay, well, on that sobering note, let's open things up a couple of ground rules if you would please all wait for the microphone and identify yourselves before posing your question. If I could start down here with Andrew here. Hold on one second, I'll bring you a microphone. Thank you, Dmitri, for your usual lucid analysis. Another phenomenon, as you know, that's taking place right now is the growth of populism, the criticism of globalization, and this looks as if it's having a direct impact in Europe, coming election in France, Italy, Austria, elsewhere. But what is happening in Russia in that regard? And is this going to infect Russia or is Putin going to be able to avoid that happening in Russia? Unless you feel that some of Putin's support is very much in that vein itself. And what are the long-term consequences of this in terms of the global outlook, if in fact you have a growth of populism somewhat open to Russia, it seems, and what impact will that have in the transatlantic relationship? Thank you. Well, I think that in Russia the wave of populism is something that supports President Putin. Vladimir Putin, early on in his presidential career, has made it very clear that Russia's government had to be two things. A, it had to be popular among the clear majority of the Russian people. That may exclude the intelligentsia that didn't matter that much to Mr. Putin. But it had to have the support of the numerical, let's say, two-thirds of the population. You can only rule Russia with any confidence if you have that sort of support. If you have 51% in Russia, that is an invitation to a civil war. So you have to have two-thirds. This is one thing. The other thing that Mr. Putin has learned that you can only rule the place with that popular support in an authoritarian way, because that's what most people would expect you to do. And this combination of authoritarianism and populism is what cements the current Russian political system. And at this point I don't see it threatened, but as all systems of that nature, they're most vulnerable when transition becomes the reality. Transition from one ruler to another ruler because it cannot be simply passed on by presidential decree. I think that the consequences of this populism, let me put it this way, I see all over the world a backlash against some aspects of globalization. And the backlash takes the form of populism and nationalism. The irony, in my view, that this trend has reached the United States of America. And I see President-elect Donald Trump as an American nationalist militating against US-led globalism, which is, in my view, ironic. We'll see whether it becomes the reality under President Trump. I think that the rise of nationalism has some implications for the United States. It has some implications for Europe already. Even though Brexit was not exactly about British nationalism vis-à-vis the rule of Brussels, there was an element in Britain all the time that made the British different from continental Europeans. In fact, Britain and Russia are the two countries that refer to continental Europe as Europe. When we say we go to Europe, others in continental Europe may not understand it, well, they will understand it now. But that's what the Brits say when they travel from London to Paris, although it's a far shorter ride. But what's happened in Russia, and that I think is of fundamental importance, is Russia having turned its back on the idea that it belongs to Europe politically, even in many ways in terms of civilization, although I understand this is not a very current term nowadays. What Mr. Putin has been able to do, and in which he has been supported by very powerful forces within Russia, is not just revisiting the legacy of Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the legacy of Russia's integration into Europe, but also the legacy of Peter the Great, of Europe being the model, Europe being your future, Europe being what you always want it to be. This has been revisited and continues to be revisited. And I don't think it's a short-term trend. I don't think it will go away with some, let's have a moment of fancy, with some improvement in U.S.-Russian relations. When Russian television starts talking about the value of U.S.-Russian collaboration and things like that, I don't think it will happen. I think that Russia is turning away. Mr. Putin and many people in Russia, I think have accepted the idea of, Toynby an idea, I don't know Toynby, of Europe being divided down that line into European civilization, Western civilization, and Russian Orthodox civilization. Of course, that's that civilization, that Toynby in line runs through Ukraine, as you all remember. But it leaves the Baltic states on the, you would say, safe side of the divide. Please. I'm Benjamin, too, a retired diplomat. Thank you very much, Mr. Trenin. I'd like to bring you back to the Middle East. Given Russia's close relations with Syria, and therefore with Hispala, as well as with relations with Israel, which you mentioned, and also with the Palestinians, do you think the likelihood of significant Middle East could be reached during Trump's presidency, including on the Palestinian-Israeli issue? Well, I don't think it's a priority for the Kremlin, frankly. The Palestinian-Israeli issue. It often is a priority for the White House, but not for the Kremlin. I think the Kremlin understands its limitations. It doesn't want to play the role there that would require big commitment of resources. The Kremlin has been pursuing its policy in the Middle East basically on the cheap. And it has achieved some results, but they know that to be mired into the problems of the Middle East would require the kind of resources that Russia either doesn't have or would not want to spend in the Middle East. So Russia I think will be there. Russia will be doing something. But I wouldn't expect Russia to engage very much on the Palestinian-Israeli issue, except maybe for public relations purposes to show that Russia could convene something with the Israelis and the Palestinians and Mr. Putin hosting them, which would serve a purpose, but a purpose different from Israeli-Palestinian agreement. Yes, but you need to include other big players. I think you need to include Saudi Arabia. No question about that. I don't think that the war in Syria can be ended without very active Saudi cooperation. Turkey, very important. A minor and yet visible player, Qatar. China, not yet in my view. I think China is still testing the waters. China is in the process of getting to know the Middle East. The Chinese are not overplaying their hand. They're watching very intently, but they're not committing themselves very much at this point. And clearly Iran. Iran is vitally important for anything that happens in that part of the world. David Kadir, back there. Thank you. David Kadir, sitting outside. If I may, Dimitri, I'd like to continue the champagne analogy whether champagne cork have been popped in Moscow recently over the win of François Fillon in the French primary and more seriously, more concretely, yesterday there was a Normandy format meeting. No results have been produced according to insiders, neither Moscow nor Kiev want to move according to the roadmap that's been proposed by France and Germany. So my question to you is how do you see the election of Donald Trump, all Fillon-LePenduel in France and the upcoming German election affecting Moscow's strategy regarding the Minsk process and whether you see the Minsk process going in the next six months more generally. Thank you. Well, David, I think that the Minsk process does not go anywhere in the next six months or in the next 12 months or in the next 18 months. In my view, and I made that conclusion pretty early on, Minsk works much more for Russia than it does for Kiev. And I see very little interest in Kiev, frankly. Not just willingness, but interest to move ahead and implement Minsk on the terms agreed in Minsk. For Russia, I can argue that it would give Russia what it wants actually in Ukraine, i.e. an inbuilt obstacle to Ukraine's bid to join NATO. That's what it's all about, in my view. But Minsk, I don't think. No one will repudiate Minsk, least of all Russia, because it works for it and it can always say that Ukraine is not fulfilling its obligation, etc. Russia is not fulfilling its own obligations, but you would be living the fantasy world of you if we thought that Russia would fulfill whereas Ukraine would be stuck. As I said, Minsk in principle works for Russia. Germany, I don't think, will change its leader this year, or its policies toward Russia. I think Germany is becoming at least under the present leadership more and more skeptical toward Russia. Some people would say adversarial. I wouldn't go that far, but Germany is at this point one of the harshest critics of Russia in the European Union. If you exclude the UK which is hard to beat on that score. Fionn, I think there is a hope in Russia that it's not about Fionn, it's about Gholism. Whether Fionn's potential victory at the polls could turn France toward the course charted by Charles de Gulle. If that happens well, there will be big changes. Because if that happens sanctions won't stand. And Paris may find a way, we can be sent back to the geopolitics of the yesteryear which Paris could some issues deal with without Berlin and all sorts of very unusual things might happen. It's still too early to speculate even to speculate about that. But it's interesting, it's something to watch. I mean you are better judges as far as Donald Trump's policies toward Europe are concerned. I would be frankly I would be very skeptical as to major changes in US France and US policies in Europe. Wayne Mary. Thank you. You got your professional start in military to military relationships with the United States which today scarcely exist. And on the basis that you said of the need for a transactional dialogue, do you think if the new American commander in chief told his generals that he wants to restore active military to military contacts with Russia, there would be on the Russian side enough of a reciprocity to make that dialogue truly transactional and beneficial. Or does something else have to precede that before the military to military channel could again become the productive channel that it once was that you and I both remember. I would vote for the latter. I would say that military to as suggested even in the last couple of years by the US has not been acceptable to the Russians. Because basically in the first couple of years of this new confrontation, Russia's strategy was not to make the situation appear more predictable and more manageable. It was just the opposite. I mentioned in response to Andrew's question that if you're the weaker of the two parties and you want to get even, you're not about to surrender. If you're about to surrender, fine. If you're not about to surrender, then you're looking for compensatory measures and some of those compensatory measures could be your willingness to take high risks. Your willingness to operate in a way that keeps the other side guessing about your next move. Your, the boldness and swiftness of your decision-making. All those things are something, and again, it's not about people being bad or people being irrational. I think it's perfectly rational although it's very dangerous to follow that course of action. You don't want NATO planes to come too close to your airspace, your territory, and you direct your own planes to come and fly very close to the planes of the opposing party. You know that it's scary, but you're willing to take more risk and your pilots will be motivated by the thought that they're defending the national territory. Whereas the other guys pilots will be doing just, you know, an operational exercise a few thousand miles away from home doing, you know. So you have an advantage even though you're weaker. And under those circumstances I don't think that the Kremlin was in the mood to have a male-male dialogue. I don't know, but that's my conclusion because they, I understand that there have been a few attempts and they were turned down. In that, if there is this transactional dialogue that I said might ensue from the meeting, the first meeting between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, then I think military to military dialogue could be revived. Certainly if there's some sort of an agreement to collaborate, however in whatever way, in Syria they will have to be serious dialogue between the military commanders in an operation that would involve both countries forces in Syria. And there will be, I think and there should be in my view I never supported the idea that you have to, you know, put the stakes high and high and high so that, you know, I thought that it was just too dangerous, too risky. And, you know, when a plane passes another plane at the speed of 1,000 or whatever kilometers or 2,000 kilometers an hour within, you know, six feet from each other, to me that's too close for comfort. But I think in this transactional sphere of the relationship there is every chance that military to military context will be improved, restored, that there will be a direct line between the chairman of the joint chiefs and the chief of the General Staff and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe and maybe commanders at different levels of NATO commands and Russian military districts, that may happen. But I think we're too, it's still too early to talk about that. We'll see how the first meeting goes. One of the things that you did in the spring which I don't know if everyone in the room had a chance to read but I would commend them was speak at the Russian Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and there's a version of that presentation in Vieta Misty if I'm not mistaken probably on the Carnegie website as well. But you really and you end the book in this same sort of tone which is that unless Russia really focuses on its domestic house and revitalizing its society, it will consign itself to a development path and a set of opportunities that will be diminished from what they otherwise might be. Everything we've talked about up to now is really about this more great power version and power politics version of Russia and it's very much externally oriented as opposed to what you sort of end the book on this same note which is we've got to get our act together if we're going to be a serious great power. How do you reconcile those two realities because I look at all the things and I can say sure Mr. Putin tried to raise the stakes and he flew his airplanes in ways to make people scared and make us back off and the Ukraine crisis. But I also see man what a series of colossal you know Ukraine which was always a fairly friendly country now for decades if not generations to come will view Russia as the place that needlessly started a war that's cost tens of thousands of lives and to basically destroyed what should have been a normal relationship with Germany, destroyed a normal relationship with most of the outside world. So how do you reconcile those competing elements of what Russia is today and what Putin has taken up? Well I don't think that there is any doubt in anyone's mind seriously speaking that Russia can only be what it wants to be if it rebuilds its economy. I'm not an economist I have no clue about you know the actual ways of performing that feat and I know that my economist friends are always quarreling among themselves about which is the best way to proceed. But it's clear that without a major rebuilding of the economy without a major rebuilding of the state apparatus and I would even go further without an overhaul of the elite we talked about the elite being the culprit in many of those cases of populism versus the status quo it's a failure of the elites everywhere you look in Russia I think that the kind of elite that we have today is absolutely abominable it's for the first time in the entire history of the country that the elite is frankly overtly self-serving they're not serving the state they're not serving the nation they're serving themselves and that's it's not sustainable and we can't achieve much with that kind of an elite we've been talking about something else it's we're talking about short-term scenarios, we're talking about geopolitics but essentially the play some role as they normally call it of the country they call taking order will be determined by how effective its economy is how good its education system is how good its health system is and we have big big problems wherever you look I think it's becoming more obvious to everyone including everyone in the Kremlin the problem in my view that even those who would vote for reform are behind the Kremlin wall would argue that evolving power will bring in chaos and I think that's Mr. Putin's view basically even if he wanted to be a reformer which he's not I said he's about two things keeping the country in one piece elevating it primarily in geopolitical and military terms he's actually using military power because that's the kind of power that he can use if Russia were the United States it would be using sanctions Russia being Russia it's using military force it's what you have that you can use and for the first time in 25 years military force has become a usable instrument I hope that there can be some small reforms in Russia in various sectors partial reforms reforming I don't know well let's say the federal customs service which is notoriously corrupt or something else and inefficient but bigger sweeping reforms in my view will have to wait and in my view they only become possible in the next political cycle and I'm not talking 2018-2024 which maybe Mr. Putin's last term in office I think that they will happen or not happen beyond that beyond 2024 but I may be wrong I tend to be skeptical tend to be cautious I would be very I would want to be surprised including my Mr. Putin and I know that some very good and serious people are working on a whole range of reforms in Russia and they have Mr. Putin's mandate to do that but I still remain somewhat skeptical as to the probability of major reforms in Russia in the next few years but again to me the key issue is the elite and if I were to vote for anything in Russia I would vote meritocracy because that I think could be the the driver of positive changes I don't think that simply devolving power simply allowing a lot of people a lot more freedom will do the job without leadership nothing can be done leadership should not only come from the Kremlin that's not enough it should come from an elite that sees itself as nationally orientated and focused on the national needs and less on their own well-being and their own riches Ilya Panamaryov Thank you Ilya Panamaryov for Russia Dmitry you I want to elaborate more about this transactional type relations between US and Russia to my mind Minister Lavrov recently was more than clear and of course he was voicing Kremlin's position that no longer Russia would allow cooperation on one frontier and another frontier and recent Duma initiative to bundle all kind of problems in one package with a plutonium utilization Act where they bundled Magnitsky Act, sanctions Ukraine like all together in one package I think that shows Kremlin's position that Kremlin wants one deal with many different deals on different directions and I don't think that this kind of deal can be made without resolving the Ukrainian crisis and I 100% agree with your opinion that Minsk agreements they are more pro-Russian but they are not working and not likely that they will be working in future so what do you think is it possible with the new administration to make this kind of deal on Ukraine and what this deal may look like Ilya, well I'm skeptical on this one big deal very skeptical I don't think this can be achieved but I'm also skeptical skeptical is one word I wouldn't necessarily buy each statement that people make at face value statements are made in certain contexts they serve a certain purpose I said something today I wanted to be heard today tomorrow is a new day anyway I say what the president wants me to say so I wouldn't just say that this is some sort of a dogma the plutonium act was more of a political statement it was not it was not meant as an ultimatum as a set of conditions it was more of a litany of concerns or counterclaims on the United States you guys have this now we have this fine we do not expect you to roll back the NATO infrastructure to where it was back in 2000 no sane person would actually expect that to happen I pointed out as a concern and this is what we've done I think the transactional deals are transactional deals because they are not they do not encompass everything you can agree on something in Syria and yet you will leave the sanctions in place and even if as Mr. Putin has said even if the sanctions are lifted or eased it's not a given that Russia will immediately reciprocate by abolishing its own counter sanctions because there's a lobby in Russia we're talking money there's a lobby in Russia that thrives due to thanks to the counter sanction that Russia has imposed and why should we you know do you think it's going to be a transactional relationship or more confrontation that's how I see it Ukraine cannot be Ukraine will take some time and I would add developments within Ukraine of all sorts of all kinds as being one of the factors in this situation Ukraine is also changing Ukraine I'm not suggesting that Ukraine will somehow reverse itself it won't I think that Ukraine has also made like Russia has made a seminal step of turning itself away from Europe let's say away from Europe as a model Ukraine has turned itself away from Russia and I don't expect that to to be reversed and I agree with Andrew that there were huge blunders in Russia's policy these are the Ukraine first of all because for 25 years there has been no policy in Ukraine and the policies that were presented back in 2011 by Vladimir Putin when he was unveiling his plans for the next presidency would have been disastrous for Russia so from my perspective it is so much better for Russia to have Ukraine as a foreign country even under today's conditions Ukraine within the Russian sphere what have you it would have drained our resources it would have blackmailed us every step of the way it would have been a disaster in so many ways so Ukraine has gone it's not such a bad thing so I'm mindful of our time any final questions I've got Doug Wake up front we're going to take them together thanks Doug Wake former Foreign Service Officer and more recently OSCE official I'd like to return back a little bit to the discussion that Andrew and Dmitry had on domestic issues and the economy which I know you said you're not an expert on and neither am I but I'm struck by your comment that you have reform over quite an extended period the next 6-8 years and if we get back to your basic thesis that the strength and power of the current rulers in Russia base that on keeping the country together and keeping the country strong internationally I'm just wondering if you don't see some risks that lack of economic reform and continued difficulty in economic relations with a broad part of the world economy are going to drive domestic politics to a different state than they are in 2016 even a radically different state over the course of the next 4-8 years thanks Doug and there's a question way on the back of our back in the green Hi Pascal Siegel from Ankara Consulting if we move to a more transactional relation with Russia from now on what do the Baltic states and the Central European countries can expect Doug I made a caveat that I did not expect sweeping reforms and I certainly did not expect major political reforms I would expect partial reforms I would expect targeted action here and there improving governance making things more transparent making the country less corrupt I would expect these reforms with a small R but I wouldn't expect major sweeping reforms and for a lot of people major sweeping reforms are primarily liberal reforms paving the way toward democracy I would not expect that but I would expect a bunch of smaller steps that would improve the situation in various sectors of Russia and of course you're dealing with a regime that is very focused on monitoring the sentiments of the population they take no chances they know that the Russian people are notoriously unpredictable as I often say if we were sitting here 100 years ago exactly today say 30 November 1916 I wouldn't be predicting either of the two revolutions that happened in the following 12 months and no one would so these people know that Russian people can be tricky Russian people do not change their leadership every 4 or 6 years through the ballot box but they bring down the entire state and ruin their country on average every 50 years if you take that 20th century so it's the Baltics and Central Europe I think that they're safe they're safe from Russian conquest safe from Russian invasion not safe from Russian influence not safe from other things that Russia is doing maybe doing covertly, overtly I don't know but it's a struggle for influence Russia will not will not stop its efforts to well make the situation in some of those countries more favorable for it than it is today there are some governments that are let's say less hostile toward Russia some governments that are very hostile toward Russia well it's expect more of this but I wouldn't expect I think for Putin this Toinbien Line is the natural dividing line in Europe unfortunately as I said it cuts Ukraine into two but Central Europe Eastern Europe the Baltic states as I said are on the call it the good side of the divide call it the safe side of the divide I'd like to end with a ringing endorsement of Dimitri's work from Henry Kissinger Dimitri Trenin offers a balanced and thoughtful analysis of the ambitions anxieties and interests that have shaped Russian policy toward the West since the end of the Cold War it is a welcome antidote to the one-dimensional views of Russia and President Putin that prevail in Western commentary I think that's what we've heard today it's what we hear every day at Carnegie when we read your work and I think around the world we're grateful to have you as our colleague and we encourage everyone to buy your new book it's been a pleasure to have you here well thank you Andrew, thank you all


Welcome to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is today's Armed Forces of the Republic of China. And my guest is Dr. Alexander Huang, who is chairman of the Council on Strategic and Wargaming Studies and also professor at Danjiang University. Moreover, Dr. Wang writes a column for a very leading time on newspaper called The United Daily News. Welcome to Asian Review. It's great to have you, Alexander. I'm glad you could be with us today.  So thank you. Thank you. It's my pleasure. Great. Great. Well, let's sort of get right into it. Tsaiyuan has a very different approach to the military than to Ma Yingzhou. Could you describe a little bit of that difference to us for the benefit of our viewers? The difference is, to put it in a simple way, is a time and heart that's spent with the uniform services. President Ma Yingzhou's make people, or especially the uniform services, believe that he took it for granted because it's a KMT president. The Army had always been part of the establishment of a long KMT rule. So people in the military feel that Ma Yingzhou did not pay enough time and attention to the military need, and they believe that Taiwan's security is based on a sound mainland policy rather than a strong armed forces. Tsaiyuan tried to change that and had visited barracks, air bases, naval bases much more frequent than President Ma Yingzhou, and had spoken to their heart and to their need. So it is widely considered that Tsaiyuan had worked very hard to win the support of the armed forces. That's my impression too. It seems to me, not to sound too critical, but there seems to be a morale problem in the Republic of China Armed Forces, and she seems to realize that and seems to want to address it. Do I have something there? Yeah, I think if we talk about morale problem, there are probably three causes. The first one is the growing imbalance across the Taiwan Strait. The China has become pretty strong, and the mounting threat is one of them. China has a psychological impact. Second is that for almost 20 years, Taiwan did not have a notable defense budget increase. So the military felt that they have been underpaid or under-equipped, compared to other countries to man and equip the forces. And the third one is more recently, it did not appear before. That was the pension reform that President Tsai Ing-wen now is taking on. The pension reform will probably reduce about 15 to 30 percent of the possible monthly pension that they are currently get. Of course, there is a pension crisis, but that also had an impact. That's very interesting. It will reduce the level of their current pension. So if you're already a retired rock military officer, or enlisted, or whatever, and you're getting, I don't know, whatever amount it is, that's going to be reduced by up to 30 percent. Yes, because of, you know, it's a complicated calculation system, like every other country. But to put it in a simple way, that the pension system of all military, government service, and ordinary workers, all pension systems are approaching bankruptcy in the next 10 to 20 years. You know, previous presidents did not want to take on this issue. I think President Tsai Ing-wen is brave enough to touch on it. As I said, it had negative impact. It has not concluded how it's going to be reduced, but it's on the way. I agree with what you're saying. This is really a problem that should have been addressed by the Kuomintang when it was in power, but they kind of kicked the can down the road and kicked it into her lap. And I give her credit for taking on this really difficult issue, because as you're suggesting, if something is not done and then the pension fund is going to go broke and everybody's going to lose out, it's just a shame to me that at the same time she's trying to build up the morale of the military, she's coming out with a pension reform. And I've noticed in the Taipei Times, as of late, there's been some pretty big demonstrations carried out by former military people opposing what she's trying to do. There are others from police, from firefighters, and high school teachers, because the pension reform is a reform across the board. And so it generated a huge protest in Taiwan, but the President seems to me is determined to carry on. Good for her. Now, you know, typically it's said that the social stability, the political stability of Taiwan depends on the soldiers, the bureaucrats, and the teachers. Is that changing, is that sort of a changing phenomenon of Taiwan politics? It's too early to say, but it does have an impact. I do not want to think of or allege that this pension reform will change their loyalty to the country. But there are growing pains in the household of those careers or professions, because there are previous calculations of family development, buying a house, and everything else, or giving funds for kids to study in the United States. All their plan needs to be readjusted. It seems to me another factor that probably touches on this morale issue in the military is, my impression is, from having been in the military to talk to a lot of military people, military people like modern new weapons, they really get off on that. And it seems like what the U.S. sells to Taiwan is usually at least a generation behind the times. And on the other hand, when Taiwan got the Apaches from the U.S., and the type of Apache they got was really cutting edge. I think the U.S. was the only other country that had it. I saw a swelling of pride in the Taiwan military, and they wanted to show it off and bring all their relatives to test it out, to go and test flights and stuff like that, which they shouldn't have done. But I think it showed a sense of pride that just kind of wheeled up. And I think you agree with what I'm saying. And now with the Trump administration, it seems like, okay, the Obama administration was going to sell a weapons package to Taiwan, just before Obama left. And then somebody in the National Security Council upended that. And then Trump said he was going to maybe supplement that weapons package and sell it to Taiwan. And now that seems to be on deep freeze, because Trump thinks he's super buddies with Xi Jinping. But I don't know, maybe I'm missing something. Do you have any recent news about this weapons package, whether it's going to go through or not, or what's your take? Yeah, the package that you refer to is a package that President Barack Obama did not feel that he should sign it off and send the notification to the Congress right before his presidential term ends. So he left the decision for the next administration. To my knowledge, President Trump's White House are looking at the package that we were talking about. But there are different views. Some people said that this is a kind of package or request from the past administration from Taiwan. The DPP may want to save money and pull all the resources together and to introduce a new package that would more close to what DPP's mind to a kind of force that they want to have. Right now the problem is that whether the White House or the so-called the mid and upper level officials in the state and in the Pentagon are not in place. So there is no initiative or momentum right now. So as slow appointments may also delay the conversation between Taiwan and the United States on new arms sales. Another facet about Tsai Ing-wen's approach to military affairs is that she really wants to build a national defense industry. And as I see it, it's for a couple of reasons, it reduced Taiwan dependence on foreign sales. And also, as I see it, her thinking is that if you have a national defense industry, it will have technological spin-off that can go into the civilian economy. How is she doing on that? What's her take? What kind of grade do you give her for building the national defense industry? Determination and will are very strong on the part of presidential office and the National Security Council. They believe that, as you said, that a renewed emphasis of the defense industry will bring more job opportunities and technical beneficials to Taiwan's economy. But everybody knows that this will be a long-term deal. It's not something that you can see that happening or the benefit can be seen in two years. So that's one part. The other part is that whether Taiwan is in need of immediate upgrade of some obsolete systems to replace them, if we are talking about a long-term strategy or industrial strategy, everybody clap hands and say, fine, we'll do it. And maybe, eventually, the United States will face difficulty to sell systems to Taiwan. So we need to build up some kind of our capacity. But on the other hand, the military is saying that we are flying really obsolete airplanes. For instance, our trainer, our F5s, they're more than 40 years old. And so a quicker supply would be buying from a board. But this would conflict to the president's industrial plane. As much as I admire her zest in wanting to create a national defense industry, I have the concern that you just touched on it. It was trainers. Now, Italy makes some really good trainers, which are used by the Israelis and several other countries. And you know, it's really hard to find countries that will sell any kind of weapon system to Taiwan. So why not go through with this? Because like you say, it's going to take a while to develop this national defense industry. You need the planes now. Go for them. And there's another part of this, too, that sticks in my mind. And I remember you and I talking about it when I visited you one day in Taiwan, Taiwan and Raytheon in Italy are developing this prototype Taiwan Minesweeper in an Italian port. And so the Italians are willing to, you know, sort of like, well, OK, whatever China says or what, we're going to go ahead and do this. And not many countries do that. And you know, I don't think you want to hurt that connection. Yes, indeed. But with limited resources and the current government's vision on how to use the limited resources, I think they consider they're building up or getting a stronger base for the future defense industry as one of their highlights of their presidency. So they need to push over for it. Yeah, it's going to be really interesting to see what happens. I think this is a good place here to go to break. You're watching Asian Review on your host, Bill Sharp. Our guest today is Dr. Alexander Huang, who's joining us from his office in Taipei, Taiwan. We're having a really interesting discussion about the Taiwan defense issues. And Alexander Huang is a noted expert in this field, so we're really lucky to have him with us here today. We'll be back in about one minute, so don't go away. I'm Kauii Lukas, host of Hawaii is my mainland every Friday at 3 p.m. on Think Tech Hawaii. We talk about things of interest to those of us who live here, and my past blogs can be found at kauiilukas.com. Okay. I didn't listen. I'm going to the game, and it's going to be great early arriving for a little tailgate. It's nice to be the guy that keeps his friends in line, keeps them from drinking too much so we can have a great time. A little responsibility can go a long way, because it's all about having fun on game day. I'm the guy you want to be. I'm the guy. Save it money. I'm the guy with the H2O, and I'm the guy that says, let's go. Welcome back to Asian Review. I'm your host, Bill Sharp. Our show today is today's Taiwan military. Our guest is Dr. Alexander Wong, who's joining us via Skype from Taipei, Taiwan. We're having a really good discussion about very contemporary issues in the Taiwan military. Well, okay. I think the next thing we probably should talk about, and some people will point it out to us that we didn't talk about it, unless we do talk about it. And that's the Taiwan Submarine Construction Plan. What's your view on that? I know that you're a former naval officer, so you must have a special interest in this. Of course. I can testify that in my conversation, since I was in the 20s, now I'm almost 58. The Republic of China Navy had never gave up the request, the idea to acquire the underwater fighting capability, because it is strategic, it is stealth, and it is necessary for our aerial and service ASW capability training. So for us, the submarine is more for ASW training purposes and limited defense for coastal waters. It's not something fancy that we are going to use that to attack. Number two, the underwater technologies that we do not have the blueprint. No country wanted to sell us the blueprint or the complete submarine. President George W. Bush showed it's goodwill and committed that the United States will work hard to see if Taiwan can get eight diesel-powered submarines back in 2001. But unfortunately, Taiwan did not have the budget to go through, and there was a conflicting view within Taiwan politicians. So the Navy had become the victim for this political consideration. Of course, submarine is a sharp technology. Taiwan needs to buy, to purchase, to learn. It takes time. And so right now we are still in the stage of defining what kind of model, capacity, and initial stage of study. The current administration of DPP wanted to conclude the study phase within several years and started the construction. But everybody knows that we need money, lots of money, to invest it in it. And we need to train our people. We need to invite and pay for foreign nationals with that knowledge and know-how to come to Taiwan to help us. It's going to be very hard. Do you think there's any possibility that Japanese might sell submarines to Taiwan or decommission Japanese submarines? It is imaginable, but it needs lots of skill or probably one or two third parties to get involved, to reduce the shockwave reaction from China. That's a really good way to put it. That's a really good way to put it. Other parties to reduce the shockwave. These days there seems to be more visible interaction between the Taiwan Ministry of National Defense and the U.S. Department of Defense.  So I guess you agree with that. Oh yeah, I think former chairman of AIT had in public stated that the United States Ministry of Personnel visited Taiwan in averages about 2000 men a year. So it's a very close tie from the exchange of academy cadets to the senior dialogue. I think we have a lot of exchanges and we are very hopeful that since the passage of the fiscal year 2017 Defense Authorization Act of the United States there will be new possibilities for flag officers visit to involve Taiwan military and the United States hosted military exercises and there are more exchanges and the collaborations can be imaginable. Yeah, that sounds good to me. That sounds real good to me. Well you know traditionally Taiwan military has been considered to be deep blue and but I wonder with younger folks coming into the military folks that have been were born and raised in Taiwan and as I understand it more and more of these folks are getting promoted to flag level rank is the military becoming less blue and maybe not green but kind of turquoise a little blue and a little green is there is there really a transformation going on? In general sense a short answer is yes there is a generation change so does to the government agencies and universities it's across the board. I think the current Taiwan Armed Forces if we are talking about in the past 20 years they were taught educated to be apolitical the growing down or the the blue party had been you know you know took away their military units or organizations more than 20 years ago. So we are looking at a new Taiwan military forces who will defend the island fight for the constitution protect the people but they try now to be political they learn their lessons and they model from the United States they pay their allegiance to the country. Okay so in other words in the old days you had if you were a Taiwan military officer and I suppose perhaps an NCO as well you were sort of forced heavily encouraged to join the KMT that's gone that's out that no longer you know you can be forced to join the KMT or passively forced because you know if we are talking about 30 40 years ago every minute young military officer knew that if they do not have a party membership they got a promotion problem but now today this is you know you don't talk about party membership even you have it you have to hide it because people hate to talk about political parties in the rank and files this is a new apolitical miniature. That's really good well now we know that you you know what the chairman of the council on strategic and more gaming studies so tell us a little bit about your organization. Well you know I started to learn war gaming when I was a grad student in the United States in the classrooms and later on play roles together with my American colleagues in the army you know war college over carol albergs and and other government agencies so I learned a lot when I returned to Taiwan when I moved back I I considered that Taiwan is at war gaming for Taiwan was only military and so I introduced the political military war games the seminar games the national security level war games to this country and I I could say that I am a pioneer and in the past you know 10 plus years I have been able to invite senior government officials to join my game and we have been pretty successful so far. Well how does this work now when you when you do these exercises when you have these senior government officials and I suppose senior military officials as well do you do like role plays is this some kind of computer simulation how how are you how is the what would be a typical problem you would have them work on and how would they go about working on it. Usually we we put people in different rooms you know in the style or format of seminar game we give our scenarios at the national security level pretty senior level and take on issues such as you know the impact of a possible war in the Korean Peninsula or a unintended incident take place near the typing islands in the South China Sea and how Taiwan's you know national security apparatus needs to react to those situations of course I try not to touch the military assault or or operational war games because that's their job I mean the the uniform services job I only do the national security you know the foreign policy men on policy decisions making process the political side of it the political yes okay that's really interesting well you know there's so many mainland missiles appointed at Taiwan and everybody's statistics vary but somewhere is between 1200 and 1800 and depends on what newspaper or magazine you read right but anyway there are a lot of missiles pointed at Taiwan does Taiwan need a tha ad system such as has been just put in place in the South Korea um yeah there are a conflicting argument for me I don't think Taiwan needs uh a sad system per se uh if uh and I also know that the pack three uh patriot system is only point defense if we want to have an area uh defense uh of missile defense system we need to think of that or a a ship based system um to me probably as a navy officer probably um as a you know strategic calculation I would rather put if we're gonna have a area defense system I would rather put it on warships okay well it's it's it's unfair to stop you at this point but I've just been notified that our time is running out and and that's the you know the clock is never our friend and uh I really want to thank you for joining us today it's been a great interview and I want to thank you and our audience for joining us today our next broadcast will be on June the 5th and at that time we'll be joined by retired navy captain Kimo Fanel who is uh was the chief naval intelligence officer at Pacific Fleet we'll see you then


There are a couple of limits that we can't handle using the basic limit theorems. So we'll introduce one more limit theorem, and this is known as the sandwich theorem. So suppose I have some interval containing a limiting point x equal to a, and suppose f of x, g of x, and h of x are functions that meet the following requirements. For all x, other than possibly a itself in our interval, f of x is less than or equal to h of x, is less than or equal to g of x. In other words, h of x is sandwiched between f of x and g of x. Furthermore, suppose that the limit as x approaches a of f of x is equal to the limit as x approaches a of g of x, and they're both equal to the same value, l. Then the sandwich theorem says that the limit as x approaches a of h of x is going to be equal to l itself. For example, suppose I want to find the limit as x approaches 0 of x times sine of 1 over x. So to apply the sandwich theorem, we'll want to find some interval containing our limiting value, and on that interval, we want to find two functions f of x and g of x, where f of x is less than or equal to x sine of 1 over x, which is less than or equal to g of x, for this interval containing x equals 0, and the limit as x approaches 0 of f of x, and the limit of x approaches 0 of g of x, is equal to the same number, l. Now, there's no good way of figuring out what these functions are. There's no formula. There's no algorithm that'll tell you what to use for these functions. The only way we can find them is through intuition and insight, and there's no way of developing these, except to do many problems involving them. However, one useful guideline is to always ask yourself, self, what do we know? And in this case, because we're dealing with the sign of something, one of the things we know is that the sign of something is always between negative 1 and 1. And so this tells us that x times the sign of something is always between minus x and x. And so that gives us a pair of functions f of x and g of x, that sandwich x sine of 1 over x in between them. But this sandwich is only useful if the limits of the two functions are the same. And here, we happen to be in luck, because the limit as x approaches 0 of minus x, and the limit as x approaches 0 of x are both equal to 0, and so we can apply the sandwich theorem. And so we can put it all together. We have negative x is less than or equal to x sine of 1 over x, which is less than or equal to x, and the limit as x approaches 0 of minus x is the limit as x approaches 0 of x, and both of these are equal to 0, so because the slices of red go to 0, then the meat also has to go to 0. And we get a limit as x approaches 0 of x sine of 1 over x of 0.


It's such a beautiful experience to actually feel oneself, to learn how to self-realize. But you have to also make an effort and you have to give. You cannot sit and sort of think you're going to find yourself. You have to go into a role of giving on all levels, on all levels. You have to give to the other. It's not about you, it's about the other. That's how you have to think. There will be a 6-day Guru Purnima Goa Immersive with Maharishika in July 2024 and a 6-day Zurich Immersive in August 2024. To know more visit maharishika.org


So here's Bob's reference frame and Alice's reference frame is moving with respect to this with speed v. Now let's say an event happens. So we've seen that we can record the coordinates of this event with respect to either reference frame and using the Galilean transformations we can transform from one reference frame to the other. So there are some problems with the Galilean transformations however. The first is that they don't take into account the fundamental effects that we've seen like length contraction, time dilation and relativity of simultaneity. The second is that they don't treat time properly in that Alice and Bob should each have their own time. The time Bob records an event taking is different to the time Alice records while in the Galilean transformations there's only one time for everyone. Lastly the Galilean transformations don't agree with the second postulate. So if I was running at half the speed of light and then I turned on a torch pointing forwards emitting photons at the speed of light Galilean transformations would suggest that someone standing and watching me would see those photons moving at one and a half times the speed of light. However the second postulate says that everyone agrees on the speed of light regardless of their initial reference frame. So what we're going to do now is derive the Lorentz transformations. So these are transformations between inertial reference frames only these are relativistic. They take into account all of the effects that we've discussed but they also reduce to the Galilean transformations when your velocity is much less than the speed of light as they should because in everyday life we don't see these relativistic effects and everything works according to Galilean relativity. So there are three spatial coordinates x, y and z but because it's easier to draw we're just going to count x and y. So we're going to be assuming like we have all this time that Alice's and Bob's axes look like what we've got above. The y-axis are parallel the x-axis lie across each other and Alice moves along Bob's x-axis with a constant velocity v so no acceleration no turning. So we can start off by seeing how do we transform the y-coordinate between frames. So we've seen that with the x-coordinate we can have things like length contraction you know a train in Alice's frame will have a different length to its length in Bob's frame. However there is no length contraction along the y-axis. To see this let's suppose that there was length contraction in the y and z directions so when an object moves really fast in the x direction its y and z axes will contract. Now in this universe we have two rings one green one pink both with the same size and they're flying towards each other at equal speed. Now in the reference frame of the green ring it is stationary while the pink ring is moving towards it so if there's some sort of length contraction the green ring will see the pink ring being shrunk so if we imagine that there's some paper stretched in the middle of both of these rings the pink ring will punch a hole in the green ring's paper. But now what about in the pink rings frame? Well in the pink rings frame it is stationary while the green ring is flying towards it which means the green ring must be length contracted but in this case the green ring would punch a hole in the pink rings paper. Now this is a contradiction because depending on our frame we think one ring remains intact while the other ring is punctured so because of this there can be no length contraction in the directions orthogonal to the motion and similarly there can't be any sort of length expansion so this tells us that the height Alice measures along how y axis is the same as the height Bob measures along his so in other words yb is equal to ya. Okay so now if we want to represent the general coordinates of some event we represent it like this. So these are what we call space-time coordinates the first coordinate is the x the second is the y the third is the time and lastly the subscript a means this is in Alice's reference frame so this would mean one meter along Alice's x-axis three meters up Alice's y-axis and half a second after the time Alice calls time zero so here we have Bob and Bob chucks a ball forward three meters per second relative to him and just as he does that he starts timing on a stopwatch so that stopwatch measures his time axis now the ball is heading towards a wall 13 and a half meters ahead of Bob so in Bob's frame what are the space-time coordinates of the event a of the ball leaving his hand be of where the ball is after two seconds and see when the ball hits the wall assume that there's no gravity the ball just travels straight ahead without falling now we also have Alice standing 20 meters in front of Bob so now she's not moving relative to Bob Alice starts her own stopwatch two seconds after Bob's again what a A B and C but this time in Alice's frame


99% of surveyed experts have not encountered any evidence supporting the existence of a secret large-scale atmospheric spraying program, which is important, because expert consensus plays an important role in shaping public perception and decision-making about science and society.


It was true. Is there anything that you know you can't be wrong about or like something you have like a lot of confidence in? I'm the wrong guy for that. Ah! I'm the wrong guy. You might be the best guy to talk to then. Without everything. Cause I am- Anyway sir, hey, could you help me out? Could you have a five minute chat with me? I know that sounds random. I know that. Thank you man.  I've been working on ways to like get people to have a five minute chat. I think I should just be straightforward like that. Helps out a lot. Anyway, um, my whole thing is So that guy's over there, he's yelling at people kind of and I'm really more about like I'm not trying to sell tickets to any church or any concert or anything like that. I want to know what you think is true and I want to show that you can have like a really nice dialogue with anyone about anything. That's my whole deal. Okay. Let me reset. I'm Ty by the way. Hunter. Hunter? Nice to meet you Hunter. Ooh, I don't know what happened. Anyway, five minute timer. Normally the funnest talks that we have are about things that you strongly believe is true. Is there anything that you know you can't be wrong about or like something you have like a lot of confidence in? I'm the wrong guy for that. You might be the best guy to talk to then. Without everything. Cause I am in that position right now. Like my whole thing is I don't know is probably one of the best answers you can give when you never have when you don't have conclusive evidence I don't know is always the best answer. That's my perspective. But um, do you have like a supernatural belief like karma, re-information? Do you believe in God? Do you like spiritual or like do you think Iron Man is the best Iron Man movie? Anything like that. I don't know that I would say I have any supernatural belief. I grew up Christian. I grew up Christian with a lot of questions about the faith. I grew up in a pretty conservative Christian church. So growing up in that, I mean I just had a lot of questions about things that didn't really make sense to me. What are some of the questions that didn't make sense? So um, I grew up Southern Baptist and a core belief is that a core belief would be that anyone who is not who does not directly profess their faith and is saved by God is damned to hell. And so I mean from like sixth grade I saw what I believe to be some flaws in that system with the concept of there being an all loving and ever forgiving God that is omnipotent and omniscient and allowing His creation to exist on an earth where based on where you're born basically you go to heaven or hell. Right. So that was probably my main thing that led me away from my denomination in particular. Okay. I would say that just kind of existentialism led me away from religion in general. Whoa, I never heard that before. Like the idea that you would die or that your life is limited is what got you out of religion. Typically that pushes people into it. No, I would say the maybe I'm using existentialism in a different maybe I have a different context for it or I'm just using it the wrong way. But um, what I mean was the fact that believing in something where there is no irrefutable evidence like of God of whatever, I mean there's I believe there's something to be said. Like it's admirable that people would believe in something without seeing it in their own eyes. But to me it just the question of what religion you follow is so closely related to the question of where you were like what social setting you were born into that I could I don't think I'll ever be able to fully believe in any faith. Let's take it to the complete flip side. So on the extreme, on one extreme end people who are like absolutely confident that a God exists. But you also have on a completely other extreme end people who not only lack of belief but also claim that no God exists. What about those people? I don't really I would say they're obviously opposite ends of a spectrum. I would say that there's not a lot of difference between them. Is that the opposite end of the spectrum? It's like almost it's own. It's not even like full loop. Yeah, it's like a two spectrum in a way. Because he's not even saying like you believe in a God, you don't believe in a God. And then there's a completely different spectrum. It's like I believe that there is no God and then there's people who don't believe that either. And then there's just the spectrum of I believe I am right and I don't know. And so I think anyone on the end of the spectrum that's I believe that I am right I wouldn't say that I look down on those people or that I think less of them they're a little confused I guess, because I mean knowing that the only things we can know are things that were taught. Like no person was born with a religion. No person was born praising God. So anything that you've been taught in whatever community, whether you grow up in like a very strict Pentecostal or even like Amish setting you believe what you're taught to believe and I think that more important is that the self-doubt is very important in the entire scheme of things more so than like what God you claim or whatever. I would say yeah like in the religion question what I am sure of what I am most sure of is that maybe not self-doubt but self I'll say self-doubt because I can't come up with a better word. But the fact that you question fully believing that you have affirmed truth is the most important. Can I try rephrasing that then? Open mindedness is the most important. Open mindedness is the most important. Open what if and this probably goes back to open mindedness but I'm just going to ask the question what if one of those religions was right? Like one of the world, some guy in Aztec temple has a talking totem wooden statue and that is God that created the universe. Like how? If they're right. I think I've thought about this a lot if in the event that someone with an exclusionary view in terms of salvation, in terms of whether you go to heaven or hell is right, I don't think I would want to go to heaven. I don't think I would want to be in the grace of a God that punishes people based on things that aren't in their control. You may not necessarily worship or would you believe it's true at that point? The point that I'm in heaven? No, when they can demonstrate to you that they're true to a criteria of your satisfaction that what they're saying is true you may not necessarily worship but would you at least be open to the admittance of okay, if you were right about that then I'm not going to worship back up. I think it would depend a lot that would to my own extent if someone proves to me if God opens up the sky and some huge miracle happens and I in my own belief know for sure in my own head that whatever this God exists, in the event that it's still this God or whatever and there's still people being damned to hell based on factors that they're not in control of, based on their environment or where they've grown up, I wouldn't worship that God I would accept that it was real if that's what I believe if some, I don't know what it would take for me because I mean you say what if they're right what if they show you some irrefutable evidence and atheists have been showing irrefutable evidence for, I mean if you're going to say what if they show evidence then I feel like the easiest thing to do is to just go to atheists who have this long line of evidence for why everything they believe is true because it's based in science and materialism what does an atheist believe is true a lack of supernatural, a lack of supernatural presence disagreeing, is that what an atheist is someone that is it not? what is an atheist? someone that's not a theist? someone that's not a theist okay so what is someone who believes solely in the material world oh, a realist so I would say replace atheists before with realists who has all of their evidence stacked up with them they can put an argument behind any point and bring up I wouldn't still say that I wholly believe that person to be right because in any, no matter what evidence you put, as long as some other person so strongly believes in something I'm going to give myself some amount of healthy doubt before I entirely discount another person's opinion you're welcome, that's pretty good thank you Hunter good to talk keep it up, that's really good I'm inviting anyone to have a quick 5 minute chat with me and that was a little over 5 minutes sorry about that it's a chat about whatever you want you want to sit down and have a chat about whatever you want I'm tired by the way nice to meet you get in there, that is not your handshake America alright, let me reset the camera


Hi there, Psych2goers! Welcome back to our channel. Thank you all so much for the love and support that you've given us. Your ongoing support has helped us make psychology and mental health more accessible to everyone. So thanks. Now, let's continue. Are you an introvert? While introverts make up anywhere from one-third to one-half of the population, we as introverts often feel that others don't seem to understand us. I know. Frustrating, right? If you often feel misunderstood by the extroverted people around you, consider sharing this video with your extroverted friends. With that said, here are six signs people struggle to understand about introverts. Number one, you're not depressed and you're not mad at them. People may think you're feeling depressed because of how much time you spend alone by yourself. However, this usually isn't the case.  Just because you need time by yourself to recharge doesn't mean you're mad at others or depressed. You'll come back and join when you're ready. Number two, you do enjoy company. You need time and space to be alone and recharge and to regain your energy after socializing.  When you're recharged and ready to go, you wouldn't mind hanging out with your friends or attending a social gathering. Number three, just because you're quiet doesn't mean you're shy. Another common misconception about introverts is that they're shy or that they have social anxiety because they don't talk as much as the next person. The truth is being quiet is not the same thing as being shy.  You'd rather keep things to yourself because you secretly hope people will stop talking about the many buffalo wings and salsa platters and move on to deeper conversations. Number four, you aren't always insecure. Are you often perceived as being shy and insecure by others? Are you always pushed into situations by others who think that socializing is the way to fix you? A lot of introverts are quiet, but being quiet doesn't mean that they're insecure. Similar to thinking that all introverts are shy, many might think all introverts are quiet and reserved because they have low self-esteem or lack self-confidence, which is far from the truth. Number five, many introverts are successful. You don't need to be an extrovert to be successful. As an introvert, you have more time to think about who you are and dig into your soul. Life's existential questions are just waiting to be answered by introverts. Because you are more inward thinking, you can spend more time thinking and reorganizing what you want in life. And because you enjoy solitude, you have a lot of time to ponder about what you truly want and learn to feel comfortable with who you truly are. When you spend more quality time focused on work and yourself, it means you may have more success when given an opportunity to share your work. Successful introverts include Albert Einstein, Rosa Parks, Bill Gates, Steven Spielberg, Sir Isaac Newton, Audrey Hepburn, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page, and the list goes on. Number six, introverts do like to have fun. As an introverted person, you enjoy your solitude at home. But it doesn't mean you don't like a day out on the town as well. You generally enjoy hanging out and talking with your close friends. So a day out of the house is usually spent with them. Or perhaps by yourself as well. Not all introverts spend every day cooped up at home. And if we do, so what? Our bedrooms are gosh darn cozy. Do you relate to any of these struggles mentioned? What are your thoughts on being an introvert? What other things do you want to let your extroverted friends know? Tell us in the comments below. Don't forget to like this video and share it with others to help us reduce the misconceptions about introverts. The studies and references used are listed in the description below. Don't forget to hit the subscribe button and the notification bell icon for more Psych2Go videos. Thank you for watching and we'll see you next time.