We're going to move very swiftly. I'd like to invite our panelists to our first panel forward and being very mindful of the time. Swabaki, you mentioned about having wise men, wise women, this expertise. If I were to develop a dream panel of thinking my way about this issue from a Western European context, I would construct this panel. So we're in for a great treat. Let me introduce some very quickly that I want to jump right into substance here. I'm barely going to let them have a seat as I'm going to introduce you. Is that okay? Can I be that?  Beginning immediately to my left, Angela Stent is the Director of the Center for Eurasia, Russia and East European Studies at Georgetown University. She also serves as a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 2004 to 2006, Angela was the National Intelligence Officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council. And prior to this, she had served in the Office of Policy Planning at the Department of State. She is one of the foremost experts on that triangular political relationship between the United States, Russia and Europe, as Minister Rothfeld had mentioned, and has a book coming out. But maybe you'd like to talk a little bit about that. Here, Angela concludes her remarks. We're going to shoot right down to James Scher, Associate Fellow in the Russia and Eurasia Program at Chatham House in London, an extremely distinguished service as Chatham House, formerly the Director of the Russia and Eurasia Program. He has served as a recent member of the Social Studies faculty at Oxford University. Also has a book coming out and has spent an enormous amount of time focusing on Ukraine, Russia, particularly on the defense and the security sector. And then we move on to Cornelius Ackman of the Bertelsmann Stiftung in Germany. Cornelius, really one of the leading European experts on the EU policy towards Russia and what we call the Eastern Partnership countries, has spent an enormous amount of time focusing on understanding the institutional relationship there. And we look forward to his comments, and last but not least, playing clean up, batter clean up here. Use of baseball analogy, Ambassador Kurt Volcker, Executive Director of the McCain Institute for International Leadership, prior to his service, served as the U.S. Ambassador to NATO in 2008-2009. It would take me a long time to work through Kurt's resume of distinguished service on many think tanks and boards and a great colleague. And I thank all four of you for being with us today. And Minister Rotfeld's a tough act to follow, Angela, but I'm going to give you the baton to see if you can do it. Thank you all for being with us. Stay here. We will stand up there. Whatever you prefer to do. Would you like to stand? Perfect. Thank you very much for that generous introduction. Thank you for inviting me to speak here.  I would just add that a couple of years ago, I organized a conference at Georgetown where we compared Polish-German reconciliation with Polish-Russian reconciliation, many of the themes you've already heard, but one thing, of course, came through loud and clear. Germany was willing, when it started this process, to undergo and to engage in what the Germans call Vergangenheitsbewältigung, which is confronting and overcoming your past and admitting your guilt. And that was a very important part in admitting responsibility for what Germany did to Poland. Obviously, in the process of Russian-Polish reconciliation, the Russians also need to confront what they did, admit responsibility and move on. And this is obviously a much more complicated process, as you've heard. And the education, I think, is key to that. And I would just say, I'm very glad that your whole project is focusing so much on education because my experience of teaching at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, albeit before this process really got underway, was that those students needed to understand much more about the realities of what the Soviet Union really did before, during and after World War II to deal with this. I would also like to recognize that there clearly has been progress in Polish-Russian relations, all of the excellent things that Professor Rotfeldt and academician Tarkunov's commission is doing. I'm going to present you with a somewhat more sober view today because what I'm going to do is to situate what's happening currently within the kind of trajectory of the US-Russian relationship and Russian-EU relations. And then I'm going to come back briefly to the Polish-Russian relationship because we do have European colleagues here and obviously we're going to get to more of the specifics here. And so I would just start with the US-Russian relationship again where I would place the context of what Russia is doing at the moment is likely to do maybe for the next couple of years. So this is a very limited partnership, it's an ad hoc partnership. I've just finished a book on US-Russian relations which you kindly mentioned and I've counted at least four resets in the last 20 years. You have different administrations, irrespective Republican-Democratic doesn't really matter. Coming into power, raising expectations, really hoping to have a qualitative improvement in relations with Russia and most of them have ended in disappointment. It's I'm not going to judge the longer-term trajectory of the Obama administration yet because there have been some successes, the new start agreement cooperation on Afghanistan, on Iran, Russia joining the WTO. Of course the two major remaining issues, one of them is missile defense and I will come back to that briefly because clearly Poland is very important here and the other one of course is Syria where there seems to be an impossibility really of coming to any agreement on that. But so that has been really the US-Russian trajectory. Now the other thing is that the US certainly under the Obama administration pursued a policy if you like a pragmatic, interest-based policy, specifically saying we're not going to link our foreign relations, our agreements to what's happening domestically inside Russia. We're going to separate this. We're not going to talk about values. And that worked pretty well till the fall of 2011 and until the demonstrators went out on the Balotnaya and they protested the Duma elections and then after Mr. Putin was re-elected the presidential elections. And that's when Mr. Putin himself tied the US-Russian relationship to what was happening domestically in Russia, blaming the United States, you know, Hillary Clinton for paying the demonstrators and he has continued to appeal to this kind of anti-American sentiment domestically. That appeals certainly to his supporters who are the working-class provincial voters in Russia. And so on the other hand he said that he's quite willing to engage in more pragmatic partnership with the US. He would like to have more US investment in Russia. And so where we are now, if you like, in the US-Russian relationship is we're sort of at a plateau. I mean maybe things might improve this year. We've got two presidential meetings envisaged. But where I think the Russians would still like vis-a-vis the US to have what one of my Russian colleagues has called an equal partnership of unequals. And that's what they're still trying to sort of push towards. And certainly to, if you're talking about overcoming the past, to definitively reject the legacy of the 1990s where Russia, in their view, was treated unfairly by the United States, was not given enough respect to show that they're over that. So this is a relationship I would say at the moment of modest expectations. And I think the other point is that Putin and those around him, I think, believe that the United States is a power in decline. They believe that they don't really need very much from the United States. And I think the US has minimum leverage with Russia. And so again, that is in the context in which we see these relations developing. And I would remind you that the Obama administration has twice changed, modified its missile defense plans, specifically vis-a-vis Poland, deployments in Poland to which, or potential deployments to which the Russians objected. And the last one, which was the announcement that the phase four now isn't going to be implemented because of North Korea, has elicited extremely modest reactions from the Russians and really not very encouraging at all. Let me just say a word now about the Russian-EU relationship. A few weeks ago, I participated in a conference with a number of EU colleagues, including Poles, to talk about this. And what was quite interesting was there was very little difference of views between Europeans, both West, Central Europeans, whatever, and Americans on what was happening in Russia, on the state of relations with Russia. We were really very much in agreement. Now, of course, we recognize in the US that Europe is fated to continually engage in a dialogue with Russia to try and improve it for history, for geography, because of energy and economics for all the reasons that we all know. But I think there was certainly a feeling that this partnership for modernization, which a number of EU countries really thought would, again, bring qualitative change to the relationship that that didn't produce very much, that, again, a pragmatic interest-based policy, which the EU also was pursuing, also didn't produce that much. And that there's a kind of plateau now, obviously, in relations between the European Union in general and Russia, and that, of course, Russia has been affected by the euro crisis. We know what happened in Cyprus. But again, I think the Russian government seems to look at the European Union in general as a declining block, that the Europe is in general in decline, as is the United States. So the Russian response to that, of course, has been to tell the Russian pivot to Asia. I remain a little skeptical about that, but that's certainly what the rhetoric is at the moment. And then the other, of course, major delight motif, if you like, of Putin's third term is the creation of this Eurasian Union. And I know that we will be coming back to that in subsequent panels vis-a-vis Poland and Russia. If that project were to succeed completely, and that's a big if, then that clearly could have a major impact on Russian-Polish relations, because it would really leave Poland as the easternmost border of democracy, rule of law, and of free markets. So let me come finally just say a few words about the Russian-Polish relationship, putting it in the context of this much more, I would say, difficult relationship between Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community. And I would say, first of all, when I was thinking back to what motivated Putin, I would agree that with what Foreign Minister Shikorski said that from the Polish side, this began earlier. But when we're thinking about the 2009 Putin visit to Poland and his speech, at that point, I think he appeared to believe that it was more beneficial for Russia to agree to open, to discuss these blank spots, these disputed areas in history of Polish-Russian relations, including, obviously, Katyn and other issues. And that would be a net benefit for Russia. I think Russia saw Poland obviously recognize its growing role as a very important leading power within the European Union. And so for all those reasons, he was willing to do it, to open the door to this dialogue. It also occurred to me this was the time at the height of the financial crisis when Russia had been very adversely affected by what was going on. So maybe that had something to do with it. My question really for my Polish colleagues and others is, you have now a new Russian drive to reassert the uniqueness of Russian slash Eurasian, the civilizational model, the rejection that the Euro-Atlantic model is a universal model. Also, we've heard about the Russian Orthodox Church very much using the Russian Orthodox Church today to convey sort of conservative traditional values and criticize, again, Europe and the United States for not respecting these kind of values. So I wonder how this drive, again, to reassert the uniqueness and importance of Russia, of the Russian civilizational model, how that will impact the discussion of historical issues going forward, including the discussion of Stalin. Again, I don't want to get into that now, but that in itself would be the subject of a whole other conference. And I'm not sure today, and again, I look forward to listening to my colleagues' views on this. I'm not sure today that the factors that induced Mr. Putin in 2009 to engage in this reset, if you like, of Polish-Russian relations, that those factors really are still as relevant for Russia today. And I think we see that maybe people will talk about in the way the difficulties that Russia and Poland have had, obviously, in dealing with the tragic plane crash in Smolensk in 2010 and sort of coming to a joint agreement about how to portray this.  I mean, and that's in the context of Europe's declining dependence on Russia, on Russian imported gas, particularly on Russian energy in general. I've talked to people who are knowledgeable about the Polish situation. Obviously, there's some discussion about exactly how much shale gas Poland has, how long it will take to produce it, to bring it online, and whether the European Union itself will maybe place restrictions on fracking. Let me just tell you that James Scher and I were at a dinner with Mr. Putin a couple of years ago, where he expressed great concern about the impact of hydraulic fracturing on the water supplies for Polish children. And I would say that, whereas these environmental sentiments were very admirable, I think the reality is that Poland will become less dependent on Russian energy imports going forward. It's just a question of how long that will take, and I don't know how that will impact the relationship. And the final point I want to make about the Polish-Russian relationship is just to raise the issue of Ukraine. I know we're going to talk much more about Ukraine. Obviously, Poland has been the leading country in terms of the Eastern partnership and in terms of encouraging Ukraine to make a choice for Europe. We have a critical issue by the end of the year. The European Union will have to decide whether it will offer an association agreement to Ukraine and whether Ukraine will sign that agreement. And clearly, some of that involves the question of the continuing, the fact that Yulia Tomoshenko is still in jail and what happens with that. So on the other side, obviously, you have Russia that has never liked the Eastern partnership and that wants Ukraine to become a member of the Eurasian Union because without Ukraine, what's the Eurasian Union? And let me just say again that if Ukraine were to join, were to sign this association agreement with the European Union, I mean again, this will be a long process, but that is potentially also a game changer in terms of the Polish-Russian relationship. That would certainly create different dimensions and structures there. So I would just conclude by saying, coming back to what's happening inside Russia today because so much of Russian foreign policy is driven by the domestic situation. This clampdown on civil society that continues, that is, and now we have prominent people leaving because it's people who had quite good relations with the Kremlin, as long as this continues, I would think there's a limit to how much any of these reconciliation processes can go forward. I understand that you can have discussions within one group that aren't necessarily affected by what's happening in the broader society, but I think in the long run, again, if you come back to the education and the way that this is presented within Russia, I think that will, as long as we have this clampdown that's continuing now, that will also act as a break on any more breakthroughs in the Polish-Russian relationship. Thank you. Wonderful kickoff. James, over to you. In order to keep my eye on the time, I will stay seated. I'd first like to thank Heather and her colleagues of having the foresight and courage to shine a light on an issue which not only risks being misunderstood in the United States, but in many quarters simply ignored. And I'd like also to thank all of you for having the taste to invite me to Washington when it's merely warm and not boiling. It's much appreciated. In the UK, we think 28 is warm and meaning 80 degrees is warm and 28 degrees Fahrenheit is cold. Right. The Polish-Russia relationship which has emerged is not a reset. It is more than that, but it is less than what Russians call a swig. It is not a geophysical change. What it is, what it represents is a conscious repositioning but for highly asymmetrical reasons and motives. I will start with the counterintuitive point. The principle aim of Poland's Russia policy today is not focused on Russia. Poland's principle aim is to establish its position as a mature and influential state in Europe and at the same time as a pivotal state in the EU's Eastern policy. It has an overriding interest in countering tendencies in the EU that diverted its attention from the countries to the east of it. And these other tendencies are very strong. The Mediterranean Dialogue and its expansion and this whole vector of EU outreach. Globalization and the preoccupation with Jihadism which is not simply an American preoccupation, it's a European preoccupation and what is worse, what is most ominous and disturbing and pervasive in today's Europe of course is introversion brought about by the Eurozone crisis. By the same token, Poland particularly after the Kaczynski experience and episode is determined to establish itself as an instrumental ally of the one European state that has both global and regional significance namely Germany. Poland is not the first state to use a relationship with Russia as a means of strengthening its relationship with Germany. This was central to the strategy and tactics of Gaulist France. These goals that I mentioned cannot be advanced on the basis of an anti-Russian policy let alone on a policy that appears to be anti-Russian. And I think the present government came to power very conscious of this and determined to change the interest of the image of Poland as a scaremonger in Europe and as the country with regard to Russia that always says no. To these ends Warsaw requires a relationship with Moscow which is balanced, multifaceted and constructive. So those are the principle, the first aims but there are others. There is a recognition and this is my second point that towards Russia a mixture of firmness and cooperation will be a far more effective way of advancing Polish national interests and protecting oneself than simply firmness on its own let alone confrontation. It is not possible to have a satisfactory relationship with Russia unless one has a relationship and that means many of the factors that Professor Rothfeld spoke about. Not just personal ties but institutionalized forums, structured mechanisms of consultation on a standing basis but most important the ability to communicate and be understood clearly on difficult questions. To disagree where it's necessary to disagree and not disagree because one simply misunderstands one's interlocutor. Thirdly there is a recognition that this policy can only succeed if it is both complimented and counterbalanced by a broader eastern policy that seeks to strengthen the confidence and security of Russia's neighbors and in the fullness of time bring about their full integration with Europe. Ukraine's future in this regard is for Poles of transcendental importance and one of the most interesting dimensions of the entire Ukraine issue which I suspect one of our participants will explore in greater depth is that Ukraine is a factor in the identity not only of Russia and Russians but of Poland and Poles. And therefore Ukraine's future is it plays a material role in Poland's own psychological and political balance. Fourth, there are all the particular issues of the kind that any Polish minister and official will speak about which are important in their own right particularly the management of relations with Kaliningrad and the attempt to soften this relationship and open it up and expand its potential without at the same time creating a perception in Moscow that Poland seeks to dilute Russia's sovereignty and encroach upon its territory and expand its own domain. And finally the issue that Professor Rothfeld understands better than anyone else to address the serious historical issues. Russia today has, Russia today over a period of years has devoted enormous effort into politicizing history and using history as a political tool and has wielded this tool often very, very effectively in societies whose understanding of history is more fragmented and less cohesive than the version that Russia puts forward. But apart from that there is also apart from this politicization there are some very serious historical issues to be overcome and to underscore a point that Professor Rothfeld made which is the key point. The Federal Republic of Germany from the time of Adenauer built its entire legitimacy on influence on the basis of a repudiation of the state that preceded it. The Russian Federation long before Putin came to power attempted to build its legitimacy and influence both on the basis of repudiation and continuity with the state that preceded it and that has caused anxiety throughout the region and it is essential that this contradiction be addressed and be explored and I think our Polish colleagues are doing that. Now finally and proceeding very quickly Russian interests. For the Russian Federation as well Poland is a pivotal state but in a very different way. If this state can be detached from the League of Anti-Russian States in Europe as seen by Moscow which in the main are Northern tier states and be made to link its diplomatic identity and influence to states that that incorporate successful partnership with Russia and place this in the very center of the policy notably France and Germany then a major sea change in European relations as a whole is possible. Doing this requires persuading as many elites in Poland as possible that the smaller states to Poland's east what Dimitri Rogozin called the new sickly democracies of Europe are immature, reckless and factors of instability and if this narrative and this perception gains ground in central Europe then the overall eastern policy of the EU and the West itself falls apart. With respect to Ukraine this Russian hope is fantastically misconceived but it is not misconceived across the board and Norma Seffert has been put into getting Polish politicians for example to accept the Russian narrative of how the Russia-Georgia war started and accept that Georgia would be an extremely that the admission of Georgia into NATO would be a dangerous and reckless decision. The second key Russian objective is to keep Poland in a privileged but dependent position in Russia's own energy market and to strengthen influence inside the country by maintaining and strengthening groups of influence who still exist in Poland and throughout central Europe who are very comfortable with Russia's business and political model. In short, by building up very close relations with Poland in the context of a German and Western European policy to transform Poland into a state which is more Western European in its psyche and objectively reinforce that line, that civilizational line that is now so central to Russian policy between its historic domain of influence and the EU. One final comment. The Polish-Russian relationship today does, I believe, demonstrate that a cooperative approach to Russia can be mutually beneficial but only if it is based on the other side on objective knowledge about those one is dealing with, about their purposes, about their strategy and about their thinking. It needs to be carried out by people who have a strategic mindset and a sense of purposefulness and who focus on this policy at the highest level in a sustained, coordinated and multifaceted way. If these conditions are not in place, as the example of the US and Russia has shown many times, such a policy will produce surprises, disappointment, frustration and disillusionment. Thank you. Thank you, James Cornelius, please. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for the invitation and interesting conversation here. So let me start with a personal remark. In addition was what Professor Rothfeld said about the German-Polish reconciliation. A few years ago, I think it was 2007, I have been invited to New York, the Columbia University to participate in the conference under the title, a German-Polish reconciliation and never-ending story. So the German participants agreed to participate. The former minister, Markus Meckl and few other persons agreed to participate at the conference under the conditions that there will be a question mark after a never-ending story. So seven years later, we are here in Washington discussing the Polish-Russian dialogue and reconciliation process. So from my point of view, it's a long-term process and the process is still going on, not only in the German-Polish relations and the Polish-Russian relations. Maybe in the future, in few years, there will be a Russian-German dialogue and reconciliation process. So we are part of the worldwide ongoing processes. Coming back to the German view of the Polish-Russian reconciliation and dialogue. So the German government, but not only a government, experts and the society is really interested in the progress in the Polish-Russian dialogue and reconciliation. As Angela Stent mentioned, the German-Polish relations are currently really good. I would say they are excellent and from this point of view, Germany is supported and is still supporting this process independently, independent from political construction from the party who is in government. I can't see any difference between the social democrats and the Christian democrats in this context. And I think that we should look at this process in the context of the Trialogue, which is developing a Trialogue between Germany, Poland and Russia. This Trialogue was initiated by Minister Westerwelle few years ago and the last meeting of the ministers took place in Poland few weeks ago. Looking on the positive Polish-Russian dialogue we are interested not only in overcoming historical disputes and misunderstandings. We in Berlin are really interested in practical results. For example, visa-free border crossing experience on the Kaliningrad region border. Could be very useful for the German internal discussion about the visa-free regime with Eastern European countries. I think it could be a good example for US visa-free traveling regulations for other Eastern European countries too. And from my point of view, the economic cooperation, the economic development of the relations in Poland, Russia are really important to us. It's important for Berlin with the trade above 80 billion euro with Poland and the German-Polish trade. Poland and Germany are from economic point of view for Germany more important economic relations, Germany, US. So the development in the last 20 years is going in this direction, economy first. The most important player in the German Eastern policy is currently the Ostauschus of the Committee of Eastern Economy and the growing influence of economy is visible in relations with Eastern European countries. So Russia and Poland are the most important partners for Germany in Eastern Europe. But there is a difference because Poland is a member of the European Union and Germany is really interesting in a cooperation with Poland in a creation of the Eastern policy of the European Union. And ladies and gentlemen, today the EU-Russia summit will start or is currently has started in Yekaterinienburg and Polish-German cooperation in this context is really useful for the creation of the Eastern policy of the European Union and the Polish-Russian dialogue has been seen in the past and currently as a very important progress, not only for the Polish-Russian relations, not only for Germany, but for the whole Europe. Thank you very much. Thank you, Cornelius. Kurt, you have been an enviable task of putting this all into context. All right, thanks, Heather. And thank you for inviting me. I know when Heather invites me to something, my job is to shake it up a little bit. So I will try to do that. The first, before I do, advertising, learned advertising is very important. McCainInstitute.org, we're doing a discussion on leadership in the Middle East tomorrow with former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert in the afternoon at our institute. And we're also doing a formal structured debate about the defense budget. Are the cuts a gift to our enemies or an opportunity for us? So that's June 19th. So tomorrow, Olmert, June 19th, debate. Done with the advertising. Look, the key thing here is that, and a topic that has not really been brought out, Poland and Russia are not equals. And what do I mean by that? Poland is a democracy. It believes in human rights, the rule of law, market economy, doing business the right way. It's a member of the EU. It's all in all a modern, normal country. None of that can be said about Russia.  And they do it at the expense of their own people and at the expense of those neighbors they can get away with doing it at. So the idea of a Polish, Russia reconciliation and dialogue, I would say good thing, be careful. And the good thing part is clear and this is what has come out. It is important for Polish security, especially given Polish history to have the relationship with Russia as well as with the European Union and many others as well in order to create as much stability and benefit to Poland for Poland's security as possible. Second, this kind of relationship can have, can have, doesn't necessarily have, but can have a direct relationship between Polish people and Russian people. And that's a good thing. Because helping Russia to modernize and helping Russian citizens have more say in their own society would be a good thing. And then the third is, and this was mentioned by Jim and it's a very good point so I included, is that it also helps the EU because Poland having a relationship with Russia as part of the EU can be very beneficial to the European Union. Now, if some, and that, those are all very real politic reasons. The watch out for or to be careful is be careful that this relationship and dialogue with Russia do not come at the expense of the Russian people or of the neighbors between Poland and Russia. And that is certainly the way Russia intends it. So it requires a lot of vigilance on Poland's part to make sure that it's getting the balance right. When people like Adam Daniel Rotfeld are in charge of this, I'm quite comfortable. When a policy of reconciliation is articulated without people like that in charge, I would be worried. It is difficult for Poland, as Jim also pointed out, because Germany and France and the US and even to some degree the UK are all doing the same thing. So it wouldn't make sense for Poland to be a one-note scaremonger out there waving a flag about Russia when everybody else is doing their own reset. At the same time, it wouldn't make sense to view simplistically the idea of the ability to have a reconciliation with Russia when Russia is not so much a country as it is a group that is running things for their own interest. And finally, I think the one element that I would add to the exposition of Polish policy which I thought was put out very well by Minister Rotfeld. There needs to be an element of educating and encouraging the United States and others in Western Europe to step up to the plate a little bit more on both sides of the equation. I think in many ways the reset policy here or with Germany is a way of keeping problems at bay rather than solving problems. And I think that puts at risk well-being of people in Russia. We've seen the crackdown on civil society. We've seen the trends there over several years especially since Medvedev has been reduced to prime minister again. And we've also seen that Russia has had no stake in the reset policy itself, I would say. They have articulated that they viewed the reset as a natural recognition of the United States of its failures and coming back to the table which means that we have to have very low expectations about what it should produce. So doing these things, maintaining the relationship, keeping dialogue and trying to address problems where possible is important and necessary and I think it should continue but I would just urge a high dose of caution in doing it. Well if you can find some questions in this discussion I can't help you. No, we have about 15 minutes for some questions. I'll take the moderator's prerogative and throw the first pitch out. But what I'd like to do is gather a few questions. We have colleagues with some microphones. Just raise your hand and if you could please identify yourself as well as your affiliation and then panelists you can decide what you'd like to answer and what you don't wish to answer. We'll leave it at that. That's right, exactly. I was struck through the conversation beginning with Professor Rotfeld and through this role of the civil society element, the public, the education against, as I said, the challenge of Russia's future narrative and the use of nationalism and I think in some ways Professor Rotfeld you mentioned repeatedly the helpfulness of the role of the churches in that yet we are seeing an increasing use of the orthodox church as again sort of a larger vehicle of nationalism and identity and I'm wondering in the future how those two, the positive which is the civil society, the public discussion, the historical fact and the truth seeking versus the future narrative of the government. So if I can just for whomever would like to do that answer that question and then we'll open up the floor for discussion but thank you all four of you really a very interesting and stimulating conversation who wants to take it, Jane. Very briefly, a Lithuanian colleague of mine in the MFA in the foreign ministry was very surprised two years ago and he walked into what he thought would be a routine meeting with his Russian colleagues and was subjected by three of them to two hour lecture on history with berating recriminations. This is how intense this whole approach on Russia's part now is. In this one respect, Gurt, with regard to Poland Russia is dealing with an equal because Poland is a country as conscious of its own history as Russia is without all these distortions. The impressive thing about the Polish museum of the uprising in Warsaw is that it was put together by historians objectively. It shows what is favorable, what is flattering, what is not. The Russians cannot do this. The experts who try to do this in Russia find themselves pressurized and hounded. Therefore, having this channel with Poland is extremely important, providing in a constructive way all sorts of pushback to what I think is a much underestimated vector of Russian policy. Thanks. Let me just add something to that. I mean, I think it's as clear from the discussion in Professor Rodfeld's speech, you have several simultaneous processes going on. So on the one hand, you can certainly have a dialogue between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Polish Catholic Church and it can make progress and you can have all those things. But then on the other level, you have propaganda emanating both from the Kremlin and then again, the heightened role of the Russian Orthodox Church in attacking Western values. So I mean, there's nothing new about that, but the question is, can this kind of the Polish-Russian dialogue between the churches that is progressing, can that remain insulated from that? A, and B, can that ultimately have a beneficial effect in the long run, even if you have all these other things going on, the popularization of certain views of history that run against this? And I think that it all comes back to what's happening inside Russia and how that's gonna evolve in the next few years. Right, I've given you some time to gather your questions. I see Janusz is going to be the first one out of the gate and then we have another colleague there. Yes. Okay, thanks, Heather. Janusz Pogacic, CSS. I'm still looking for a good definition of the word pragmatic. I keep hearing this constantly as a throwaway in Russian-Western relations. Does it mean flexible? Does it mean strategy or tactics? Does it mean focusing on one policy, ignoring another? I mean, if you look at history, you could say that Lenin was a pragmatist, Brest-Litovsk, Stalin was a pragmatist, socialism in one country, Rubentroff-Molotov. These are all temporary compromises, but they ignore the goals, the ambitions, the long-term strategies, the objectives of a particular power. Is there a danger that we could miss a lot on what's happening under the table, behind the scenes in Russian policy by focusing on the evident pragmatism? I wrote an article a couple of years ago called Russia's Pragmatic Reimperialization, which it sort of, it sounds like a contradiction, but it means you're flexible and you can adopt different tactics, different strategies. So if you could answer that, or sort of let me know what you think. While you're formulating that answer, we had a question right there. Yes, thank you. And then we'll take the third question, Steve Lehrer, be there, and then we'll let you take a pause and answer them. Elizabeth Pond, World Policy Journal, based in Berlin. I would like to ask both Mr. Scher and Mr., sorry, Kurt Volker, yeah, of course. If you could clarify, you've both alluded to a distinction between Polish-Russian reconciliation or relations as conducted by Professor Rotfeld and German-Russian relations. And I'd just like to ask if you could tease out a little bit with an implicit criticism of the German-Russian relations. I wonder if you could tease out a little bit of what the distinction is. Yes, and I just added two-finger to that for Cornelius with the recent Putin-Miracle visits, the Petersburg Dialogue. I think German public opinion is changing a bit because of the internal dynamic and I'd welcome your thoughts on that. And last question for this first tranche, Steve Larby. There's the microphone, Steve. Steve Larby ran. Actually, I'd like to ask Daniel if I can address the question to him. From your experience, what do you attribute the improvement in Polish-Russian relations to? Is it deep-seated or is it quote-unquote simply pragmatic? Do you think it'll continue? Okay, Professor Rotfeld, we'll take that. You can handle that one blast. Let me throw this open to the panel to hit pragmatism and German-Russian dynamics. Well, I'll take a first stab at that. Pragmatism depends on who is being pragmatic. Because if you know ruthlessly what your goals are and you're prepared to pursue them by whatever means, so that's one definition. I would argue that in the West, we actually don't know very much what our goals are at the moment and pragmatism is in many ways putting interests ahead of values where we'll just do whatever we have to do and not fuss too much over it rather than trying to keep them linked together at all times. On Germany and Poland, what I said in commenting on the Polish-Russia reset is it's essentially a good thing, but there's a watch out for, which is that it comes at the expense of the Russian people or the neighbors between Poland and Russia. And that, I think, points to where the German-Russia reset has gone off the rails a little bit because I think that it was so wide-open and uncritical that it did, in some respects, come at the expense of Russian people and people in the borders in between. And you think in particular about the German-Russian relationship on energy and how that was sustained by both sides at the expense of some of the interconnectors being built and some of the release of the near monopoly that Russia had on energy supplies in Eastern Europe. As Heather said, that has been changing. That's where it went off and I think it started with Schroeder and then I think under Merkel it continued and then now with the incontrovertible decline in democracy and human rights in Russia that the German public is concerned and is wanting to see Germany pull back into better balance now. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Heather, for this comment. I think that the picture of a German view towards Russia existing in US and in Poland is a little bit different from the reality because German politicians and German public opinion have been critical towards Russia not since half a year, but it is a process. And from my point of view, the German view towards Russia changed during the first Putin presidency. Maybe a rest of Hodor Kowski was the turning point, but it was a long process and the decision of the German Bundestag to criticize internal development in Russia in November last year has been a result of the long-term processes in Germany. Of course, we have a different interest group. The German economy is still really interested in a good relations with Russia, but political tensions in German-Russian relations didn't influence the trade. So regarding the trade, Poland is still more important for German economy than the trade with Russia because there is a difference between the German-Polish economy relations and the German-Russian. More than 90% of the Russian export to Germany or German import from Russia, it's energy resources, it's gas and oil. And German's economy is really oriented on interdependence and the economic relations between Germany and Poland are independent relations inside the European Union. But speaking about German-Russian relations, we should make a step back to the reunification of Germany. This process was influenced by the positive position of Mr. Gorbachev. And this positive view is still existing in Germany about Russia changed in the last 20 years. The Brettersman Foundation just finished a study. We will present it at the end of June about German view towards Russia and Poland. And the German society is much more critical towards Russia than towards Poland. And it's the real picture about the East. Of course, there are still existing, I would say the old pictures that media are still using the term Eastern Europe for the whole region of former Eastern bloc or something else. But the society realized that there is a different development and could Volker mention the difference between Poland and Russia. And I think that 25 years after the changes or dissolution of the Soviet bloc, there is a different approach towards Germany and towards Poland in Germany. Yes, Janusz in my book, which Brookings is launching tomorrow. Okay, with the paid advertisements. I've had quite a discussion with myself about pragmatism. In the Russian case, there's nothing to discuss. Russia defines pragmatism as, quote unquote, the strict promotion of Russian national interests, i.e. irrespective of how they affect the interest sensibilities and sensibilities of others and irrespective of whether people like us or don't like us for doing these things. The lazy Western approach to pragmatism, well represented in certain quarters of the British government, is the search for mutually acceptable outcomes that please everyone. Now, I think on our part we need, I'm glad for your question, I think we need to have a sober discussion as to what we mean and arrive at something, somewhere equidistant between these two points. Elizabeth Pond's question, I think it boils down to this. Who do the Germans talk to when they're dealing with Russia and other Eastern issues? Who inside Germany is going to have the most influence in policy? Those people who are still very strong in certain institutions, who are addicted, who have a psychological dependency on maintaining the cliches that have existed for 20 years, certainly throughout the Schroeder area and who cannot conceive of life unless they keep taking these tablets, or those people who are growing in number in Germany, not only in other political structures, but in business and in the energy business who are willing at certain points to say enough is enough and distinguish German interests from Russian interests. And the other side of that is which countries to Germany talk to? Do they talk to countries? Britain occasionally behaves like one of these countries. Italy always behaves like one of these countries who seem unable to distinguish the business interests from the national interest, or do they talk to countries that have a strategic view of Central and Eastern Europe and how it all fits together? And this is the prize and this is what is so important about strengthening that relationship in my view. But in order to do that, as I said, Poland can no longer appear to be toxic in the German polity as an anti-Russian. All right, two co-packs worth on pragmatism, but I have to tell you, listening to you, James, Elizabeth, I remember a number of years ago at a conference at CSIS when General Klaus Naumann accused the Americans of empathy deficit disorder in dealing with Russia. And I think there is still a lot of that. I mean, Germany, given its own history, its own past, also what happened in unification, I think things that the United States doesn't spend enough time trying to understand and be sympathetic towards Russia's unique concerns. All right, pragmatism. Every Soviet leader, of course, was pragmatics, Stalin, Lenin, all of them. I think the specific definition, right, that it's come to mean, at least if you look at, let's say, Russian-U.S. relations is that we just focus on the interests, on can we achieve something in Syria, whatever, and we back off from talking about what's happening inside Russia. And certainly, I think, from the Kremlin's point of view, pragmatism means not only doing what we want to do in Russia's national interests, but ensuring that neither the Europeans nor the U.S., well, isn't anyone else that does it, upraids us for what we're doing domestically or somehow policies influenced by that. So I think it means very, it lies in the eye of the beholden. It means very different things to whoever's using the word. Thank you so much. And I know, Kurt, you may have to sneak out a little bit now, but I thank you so much. And Professor Rotfeld, if you can do it in, if you can answer Steve Larrabi's question in two minutes. Thank you, Kurt. He's coming, this is serious. He's coming up to the podium. However, Steve's question is very important and I will, I'm in a position to say in two minutes, but it seems to me that there were some other questions which I would like to touch, especially Janusz Bogajski when he raised the question of pragmatism. I would like to say that, in fact, we should not see Russia as something totally different, a kind of the animal which does not exist in all the other parts of the world. Yesterday in Washington Post, I have seen the quotations by Senator Rohrbacher who said a lot of, I would suggest you to read it. Because it is, because in my view, I don't know how to interpret, but one can say that it is a kind of the pragmatism or hypocrisy or cynicism. All that is combined, in other words, Russia is not unique in that.  They are offering you a lot of promises, nice words, but nothing behind. And I would like to say the following, that one should also try to understand that Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union is in totally different situation than it happened before. It is in the process of fundamental change of circumstances. They do not have a response what to do. The main problem for them is how to keep the country to prevent the fate of the Soviet Union. In other words, this integration of Russia is the priority number one. Second element is what is very difficult to understand for Americans especially, that Russians are full of the complex of inferiority. Americans, they do not have such a complexes. And this is, I would say, fundamental difference. The problem between Poland and Russia is that Poles have also complexes of inferiority. But Poland is much smaller and in Russia complex is much bigger, much bigger. And when you have a need to find something in common between those who are with complexes, it is the problem of psychology. It is, well, I would like not to continue my intentions to say the following, since Steve Larraby raised the question, what was achieved? I would like to say that there were three fundamental issues which we were able to achieve much quicker than I expected. I would say the first one was that we were able to discuss because our discussions were without press, without media in very open way. I did not ask them to prepare something in common because in my view, it is impossible at the very beginning to start to write something because idea was that we should offer for the leadership in both in Russia and Poland a kind of the history written in common. I said it is impossible. We can make the common catalog of problems and then to present for each chapter, there were 15 chapters, 15 blocks in 100 years, recent 100 years, to present the most painful, the most sensitive issues. And then to present by the Polish perspective and the Russian perspective, it happened. And I would like to tell you that my great astonishment at the end of the day was as an editor that I noticed that one can remove the names of authors from Poland and Russia. Nobody would be able to say who has written what. In other words, it was very honest approach on both sides with a lot of, sometimes it is possible of course to say that it is written by Russian because of terminology, Russian, Soviet mentality. But the most difficult issues, for example, massacre of the Polish officers in Katyn or Molotow-Ribbentrop Act or the question of the words of uprising, behavior of Russians, it is written in very honest way. I would like to say Russia is diversified. One cannot say that all the Russians they have this view. This group is not typical. They are the people with a good intention. How long they will be able to continue? It is an open question, not all of them, most of them. Second, I would like to say that our achievement was that we were able to institutionalize dialogue. Not to make this as a kind of one conference, 10 conferences, but this center of dialogue and understanding is very important because for the first time, Russians accepted that such a center will be also in Moscow, not only Warsaw. The third element, the patriarch and hierarchy of the Polish Catholic Church. Andrzej Stend was right in that sense that patriarch should not be identified with the believers. Believers in Russia are not comparable to the Polish believers. For simple reason, they are only 2% of Russians who recognize themselves as being believers. In Poland, there are about 90%, let's say 60% definitely are believers. And it is a kind of the disproportion. Nevertheless, they introduce the element of morality because reconciliation is very much connected with the problem of recognition, of being guilty, of being responsible, it is connected with forgiveness. All that is not the political language. It is addressed to the people, not to the nation. Altogether, I would like to say that in my view, it has to be continued. I will stop it because you offered me only two minutes and I'm thinking 20 minutes, so thank you very much. No, thank you, Professor. You were the perfect finishing point and now I'm going to be brutal. We have five minutes where I allow you to refresh your coffee, but then please be back here. I'm going to invite the next panel to come up here, but let's pause for a moment before you race to the restrooms and thank our panelists. Thank you so much.


Now let us make a few other observations here. I just said that an optimal solution is this lambda i star equals 1 and all the other lambdas equal to 0. Are there other optimal solutions? Are there other optimal solutions? Yeah precisely. So if there are there could be other optimal solutions say for example here I said well x i star is the one that is giving you the least here least of these right x i star was the one that is giving you the least. There could have potentially been another one right say for example this could also there could also be another one say let me write it here suppose c transpose x i star is equal to also c transpose x i hat another index which another extreme point which happens to have the same objective value as c i star then both I could have taken i hat here and I would have I could have continued with the same argument I would have got that one as a solution. In fact in that case I could have done even more instead of putting lambda i hat equal to 1 and everything else is 0. What I could have done is this I could have constructed a solution like this lambda i equal to 0 for i not equal to i star and i not equal to i hat. So if it is not i hat or i star then it is 0 and the remaining two the other two that means i star and i hat are chosen to be if greater than equal to 0 and sum to 1. All that matters is that they sum to 1 because then in that case if you look at this term here all the what is this going to reduce to in that case if you look at the objective the objective is going to reduce when you look at this summation lambda i c transpose x i this because all the other lambdas are 0 what is left is just lambda i star c transpose x i star plus lambda i hat c transpose x i hat but then c transpose x i star is equal to c transpose x i hat there they are both both extreme points have the same value. So then what you are left with is just lambda i star plus lambda i hat times c transpose x i star and so long as this sums to 1 I have I still get the same value. So what this means is if I not only is x i star as an optimal solution x i hat is also an optimal solution and the segment joining them the segment joining them which is lambda i star x i star plus lambda i hat x i hat where lambda is sum to 1 that entire segment joining them is also an optimal take any point on that segment that is an optimal solution. So that is seen in this figure that I had drawn here you have this is like your point x i star this is your point x i hat and this is the entire segment joining these two points. So good question so is it possible so the question he is asking me let me draw a new open new a diagram here which is very nice question. So the question he is asking me is suppose let us take this sort of polygon here is suppose your x i star i star and the other point that I so the way I illustrated this was I said like let us take this as x i hat right x i hat here and x i star here and these two are both optimal and the entire segment joining them was optimal but what the question that has been asked is what if you did not have this as x i hat but rather say this as x i hat say it was you know what he said was diagonally across say suppose this is x i hat in that case this would the segment joining them which is passing through this would that be optimal. So then where is the fallacy you are saying it cannot be optimal then where is the fallacy the point here is that you you it will never happen that such such to these two points are both optimal because the very fact that these two points are optimal means that they are on the same contour and then your contour can be moved this way or this way to get a better answer better value right that can that sort of thing cannot happen. So eventually you it has to be that the extreme points are what is there on the same face of the polyhedron okay the extreme points that are all optimal are on the same field in which case the entire phase becomes optimal yes yes so we are exploiting to the hilt here that the problem is linear okay in the sense that the optimum the objective is linear the constraints are linear the shape of the polyhedron all of that is being exploited completely okay if I have if I had some other non-linear objective then a lot of these arguments will not go through as elegantly as they go through here and of course if you did not have a polyhedron then you do not have Minkowski while theorem to begin with so that is that is another problem okay. So you this says that so let me come back to what I was saying so this just ensures tells us that there is at least one extreme point that is a solution does not mean that there are non-extreme points cannot be solutions okay there can be that depends on the depends on the objective okay. Now let me ask you can there be a ray of solutions so of course there can be a segment when you have two extreme points that are that are a solution the entire segment joining them with the solution but can you have an entire ray means that a point and a direction along which you keep going and you keep yeah and you keep getting all those points are solutions is that possible yes so it needs a polyhedron to begin with for you to have a ray of solutions you need to have a ray of feasible points right so the polyhedron has to be unbounded okay. So it is interesting to ask this question only if you have an unbounded polyhedron which means that you are in the regime where all these D's are these D's the DI's are not 0 okay there is at least one non-zero DI here okay a non-trivial extreme way okay then in but in that case but does that ensure that your you have a ray of solutions it can be and then what must be the case for that situation right so remember we said that we argued that C transpose DI's have to be greater than equal to 0 right and therefore we said we should put all the coefficient mu corresponding to it as 0 all the muses were set as 0 but what if one of the C transpose DI's was exactly equal to 0 in that case the mu would be material it would not appear in the objective at all right. So you look at the objective sorry it is here in that case the mu the mu would drop out because C transpose DI is equal to 0 right so if you have any if C transpose DI is equal to 0 for some I then what can I take the mu corresponding to that that I as I can take it as anything right so then mu the mu I greater than equal to 0 is optimal any mu greater than equal to 0 is okay right which means then I can start with any solution. So if X star is a solution then I know that X star plus mu DI belongs to P this is feasible it belongs to P because after all DI is an extreme rate right so I can keep going along DI form X star and remain in P the X star plus mu DI is in P and what is the objective at X star X star plus mu DI well the objective is C transpose X star plus mu DI is equal to C transpose X star plus mu times C transpose DI and what is C transpose DI C transpose DI is 0 right so this means this is equal to C transpose X star. So what this means is if you if X star is a solution and DI is a direction D such is a direction such that C transpose DI is equal to 0 then X star plus mu DI is also a solution for any greater than equal to 0 right so I can keep adding this mu DI to my point X star and I will keep generating a solution so it is not just X star that is a solution the entire way starting from X star going all the way along the direction all the way till infinity along the direction DI that entire thing is a solution okay so this way you can get a way of solutions also right so but remember it requires a fine coincidence your C transpose DI has to be exactly 0 right so they have so your objective function the direction in which it it is decreasing has to be exactly orthogonal to the direction in which the set received okay so you get but you get a way of solutions but remember still that the optimal value is still finite because the optimal value is not changing because of this orthogonality between C and DI the optimal value just does not change as you go along that way that is what this right okay so what does this taught us what what this is taught as is see Minkowski Weyl theorem is super powerful if you it basically has reduced optimization over linear optimization linear programming to just a matter of enumerating C transpose Xi is over the extreme point right but so but the catch in all of this is that we do not know what the extreme points are to find to given the X less than equal to B type of representation of your polyhedron your half space representation from there finding the corresponding X1 till Xk and find and the D1 till Dm that is where the challenges right that is what so the all algorithm design would have to in some way or the other deal with this issue okay trying to get to this okay at least if it is aiming to find an extreme point solution just somehow has to get to this okay so this this is the qualitative theory of linear programming that is since we have a few minutes let us just do a few examples okay before I do an example let me I want to also mention one more point yeah this is this is important go go back to the statement of the theorem again so we we saw how we made use of of this point that the optimal value of the LP is finite we made use of this quite that the optimal value of the LP is finite that is how we got that the mule should be 0 right where did we use that the that the polyhedron must have at least one extreme point yes we we use that in invoking Minkowski Weyl theorem right in Minkowski Weyl theorem also requires that that this set has at least one extreme point that is when you can write it in this sort of form right so the Minkowski Weyl theorem we used it in Minkowski Weyl theorem now can you give me an example of a polyhedron that does not have an extreme point yeah so so if I take any hyperplane for example that is a polyhedron that has no extreme point right so in that case we cannot say that the extreme point is a solution okay. Now what the so so come back also now to what I had done in the previous lecture if we said we said we start with a problem like this which is simply x belongs to some polyhedron which means it is written in this sort of form x minimize c transpose x subject to ax less than equal to b but then we converted it to this sort of problem we said minimizing c transpose x subject to ax equal to b and x greater than equal to b all right we converted it into this form remember so the again emphasis was on form these a's are not necessarily equal the b's are not necessarily the same the c's are also not necessary in fact the x is also possibly changed just that it means that there is a problem you can write this in this form and recover back the solution of your original all right okay now focusing on this form again now a polyhedron like this when I write it as ax less than equal to b this sort of polyhedron need not have an extreme point right so this could be for example just a hyperplane two opposing inequalities differ that will define a hyperplane that has no extreme point what about this sort of polyhedron what about the polyhedron on the right so we were let me be more specific here we said that a is full row rank and we said that b can be taken as greater than equal to 0 so this this sort of polyhedron now is a polyhedron which expressed in this form ax equal to b and x greater than equal to 0 for all the constraint all the all the variables right this sort of what can you say about this is a much more specific polyhedron right it is not a generic polyhedron like the one on the left the generic polyhedron may not have an extreme point but what about this specific one so it turns out this sort of this specific polyhedron actually has an extreme always has at least one extreme point yeah see I will I will I will give you a pictorial view of this right now we can prove it in the next class see the way this sort of polyhedron looks ax equal to bx greater than equal to 0 the way this sort of polyhedron looks is your from the two rays to n possible orthans of the space Rn the x greater than equal to 0 is one of the orthans right so the signs of x will distribute the entire space into two rays to n possible orthans x greater than equal to 0 just tops out brings out one of them this is suppose that orthans so this is just talking of this is just expressing x greater than equal to 0 what is ax what is ax equal to b ax equal to b is the intersection of several hyper planes in this space right so it is actually a hyper plane okay okay a lower dimensional hyper plane it is intersection of several hyper planes so it is as you keep taking intersections you get lower and lower dimensional sort of affine sets so it is some affine set ax equal to b it is an affine set that is being that is being intersected with the non-negative orthant this orthant here right so an affine set remember is like just a shifted subspace so it is so I will I will draw it like this this is my my ax equal to b and ax equal to b intersected with x greater than equal to 0 is this region it is basically just this right just that segment that part there here because we are in R2 it looks like a segment but in general it will be some it will be some say some poly drill set this sort of set can also be unbounded okay it is possible for example for example it can be that this ax equal to b is aligned like this with the axis in which case it will be unbounded in this direction it can be unbounded it is not a bounded set but one thing is for sure it cannot escape eventually it cannot it cannot happen that it does not hit any of these axes there will be it will either hit this axis or this axis one of those n different axes is going to be hit so it will intersect one of and when it intersects one of those axes okay one or more of those axes right okay this is this is all in happening in higher dimensions so remember when in several of its coordinate when it intersects several of the coordinates of x will end up being 0 and the others will not be 0 when you when you get to that sort of point that sort of point will end up being an extreme point of the set so the kind of polyhedral that do not have extreme points are those that are sort of you know say hyper planes etc which which you cannot which you are not able to sort of confine so here the x greater than equal to 0 forces you effectively to end up having an extreme one so I am giving you an intuitive picture here but basically what you what what is the claim the thing to notice is a set like this ax equal to b and x greater than equal to 0 this sort of polyhedron always has an extreme point so what this does is this actually helps us in designing algorithms for linear programs implicitly a set like this an optimization problem like this it did not if it did not even have an extreme point so we could not even say where okay that we did not even have a target saying okay we are looking for an extreme point to solve the problem now we this once we reduce it to this standard form not only is it standard and and easy to program and so on so it in addition it is guaranteeing us that there is an extreme point so the search for a solution also becomes easy so you get so this sort of set must have an extreme point is this clear so yeah so this is so the extreme points of this sort of set are what are called basic feasible solutions I will I will talk about this basic feasible solutions so since you have about 10 minutes I can just define you for you what this is so if I take the set the matrix A okay and I can now what I can do is I can write it in the following form to remember A is full row rank so if A has m rows and n columns then I can write it in the form in this sort of form where the vectors B the vectors B are such that they are columns of A that are linearly independent and I can how many can I put in how many such columns can I add to be m of them right because that is the rank of A so I so I will take B to have m columns okay so B will now have m rows and m columns and all the remaining I n minus m I am putting in n okay n minus m columns so I can I can choose such a such m columns from my from this from the n columns that I have from for A then that will give me a way of writing A in this sort of form as B and n and then if I solve using this what I will do is to solve for x what I what I will do is I will so I am going to multiply this by x let me write this as x B and x n so this x B is of length m it is what multiplies with B x n multiplies with n right so what I will do is I will put I I will solve for x B and put x n as 0 so putting x n equal to 0 and solving for x solving for x B what does this give me this give me the equation B x B equal to small b right which is and because B is now m cross n and it has linearly independent columns right so B is invertible so x B will be equal to B inverse B right so a point like this x B comma n equal to B inverse B comma 0 this sort of point is what is called a basic solution a basic solution is a point is a point like this so what you need to do is you create you look for columns of A that are linearly independent you will m of them you should be able to find m of them so take m of these linearly independent columns solve for the x's corresponding to those columns and put all the remaining x's as 0 so put the remaining x's as 0 and solve for the x's that are corresponding to this column that will give you a vector like this B inverse B comma 0 now this sort of vector may not satisfy x greater than equal to 0 right so if B inverse B is also greater than equal to 0 then we call it a basic feasible solution so what I will argue next time is that actually basic feasible solutions are the same as extreme points of this sort of set so A x equal to B and x greater than equal to 0 solving for extreme points is effectively solving for finding points in x by putting some of the coefficients equal to 0 and solving for the rest right and that is like what I was saying you have these you have this affine set it intersects it hits one of the axis by when you say it hits the axis it means that some of the coordinates become 0 you need the other ones need to be found and that then gives you the that the other ones need to be found through the through the equations that you have so that is how we get to extreme points we will do this in more detail next time


Are the all the sessions a similar time or did you figure out different times for different frequencies and duration program has a different number of frequencies, right? So, depending on how many number of frequencies there are in the program, that's how long the program is. And a lot of people will ask, well, how long do you use it for every day?  You can use it. From 30 minutes a day to a couple hours depends on the energy sensitivity of the person. You know, in Qigong, right? Some people are very sensitive. Some people can't feel any energy, right? So, for the people that can't feel it, it takes longer actually for this to resonate with their body and their cells. For people who are very sensitive to Qigong, even like yourself or many people watching this webinar, you won't need as much because you are more receptive to it. For some reason you are more sensitive to it and it works better for you and faster. Yeah, that's great. So, people will feel it and they'll pay attention to it and get the benefits as needed.


I'm Marcia Joyner and we are navigating the journey. Today's journey is into yesterday's election, which was or is the most important election in most of our lives, or at least not mine, but this generation. So we want to talk to Laura Nevitz, who is the Executive Director of the Democratic Party, about this election and what it portends for the future. So welcome, Laura. Thank you very much. Laura is the Executive Director of the local Democratic Party, but you have worked at other parties all over the country, which is why I wanted to talk. Well, I haven't worked four, but I've worked with. I have worked in five other states across the country over the last 20-plus years. Primarily spent a lot of time in Wisconsin and Minnesota, and kind of my home bases and where I started working, but have been— Are you originally from Minnesota? I am not. I'm a base brat. My dad was in the Air Force, and so I always kind of my short spiel. I was born in California. I spent my childhood in Texas, grew up on the East Coast, graduated high school there, then went back to the Southwest. Ended up in the Midwest after falling in love and have spent many, many years there, but have worked in the Deep South in Louisiana and in Michigan, the specific Northwest and Washington state, and now Hawaii. So I've been kind of a lot of places. Well, let's talk for Hawaii. The woman that was elected Governor of Guam. Oh, yes. Very exciting. And the first time I believe in a while, they've had a Democratic governor, and I was just reading a report. Part of my job is I actually get to be in touch with all the executive directors of all the state parties all the time. And so it was, you know, yesterday getting emails from the Guam ED that they were very excited that this was happening for them. Yes. Now, Guam is a territory? It's a territory in the United States. So they have a representative in Congress, but they don't vote. Is that correct? Correct. I believe that. Very much like Puerto Rico, right there. Like Puerto Rico. Let's see if I have a name for their person. Okay. Mike Nichols is U.S. Congress. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so that person gets to go to D.C. But they don't have a vote. But they don't have a vote. So yeah, we have 50 states and seven territories, and they, it's kind of an odd that they elect somebody to Congress, but they don't actually get to vote on it. So it's strange. They said we more often hear this in reference to Puerto Rico than we do in the District of Columbia. In the District of Columbia. But we forget that we have, you know, the Mariana Islands and Guam and American Samoans. Yeah. What about the rest of the Mariana Islands? Saipan, Rototinian. Yeah. So they're collectively, we call them the Marianas. And then they have, same thing that they've kind of... They have a representative? I believe so. I mean, I'm not. I don't quote me on it. Not on my territories as much as I have. But we do have a representative from Samoa. American Samoa. Americans more. And Puerto Rico. And D.C. And Guam. Yeah. There are a few others. I just think we have seven territories. I can't name them off the top of my head. Okay. Anyway. All right. Okay. So that's, I'm excited about that one. We elected over 100 women to Congress this last night. I mean, it is historical. The number of women... 100 women? Over 100 women. I got elected to, you know, it's historical, the number of women who got elected last night. Unprecedented numbers for the... And women of color, which is pretty amazing to watch. We elected our first Native American out of New Mexico. We elected our first Muslim woman out of Michigan. We elected our first Somali Muslim refugee out of Minnesota. And the list goes on. I mean, it really is, you know, the thing, if you want to look for the good things that happen this week. The young lady in New York. The one we can... Yeah. First Latina, youngest woman elected to Congress. Yeah. I mean, it's just, these are the things when you're looking for hope and you're looking for positive change. What happened yesterday really was historical. While there were some very disappointing losses in places, we really thought maybe we could do it. And those were heartbreaking for many reasons. And there were also just many amazing clouds of, like, silver linings that happened. We took back a lot of governorships in states that were once read. We took back the House, which was really the main goal. And so Democrats should be really proud of that work. We set a goal and we achieved it. And we're looking at over probably 35 seats when we're all said and done, which is huge. And we've kind of, you know, we've now have some check and unbalance on what is going on in Washington to see that we didn't have before. Do you think, given the way Mr. Trump acts, he thinks he's a dictator, but the number one, number one in the Constitution is the House of Representatives. Right. And it tells the function of the House of Representatives and who they are. Right. And the only thing it tells about presidents is how to get rid of them. Right. Yes. So it is the power of the House of Representatives to start impeachment processes if they want to do it. Right. That starts in the House, not your Senate. Of course, you know, given the news of this morning with the firing of just sessions and the shake-up and the DOJ, it's going to be interesting now to see what happens in the next 48 hours. I mean, when I left this morning to come to work, Rod Rosenstein was on his way over to the White House, so we have yet to see kind of how this... He's got rid of him, too. But it will then become, you know, it will become, when we get a new Congress in January, it is incumbent upon them to kind of take up that charge. If we think what's going to happen is going to happen, and this really is an attempt to get rid of Mueller, it will be their responsibility to kind of take that charge back up. They go to D.C. next week. They will go to... Yeah. When are they sworn in? Not until January 20th. Yeah. I can't find the dates always. Yeah. Well, Colleen Anabusa said just last week about what she was looking... Because she's still in Congress. Yep. So she had to go back, and she said, if this were to happen, the confusion and all of the things that have to happen to make that transition. Yeah. So that was why she had to go home. Yep. Go back. Yep. They'll go back, and they'll figure out who...they'll elect their new speaker. They'll make sure all their chairmen ships are in place. They'll make sure they're all going in strong when they're elected on the same page, because they know they have a fight ahead of them. It doesn't end because they won the House yesterday. There are still now lots and lots of work to do, and I think they're trying to be very strategic and understanding that they have to walk a very tight rope in, you know, they now are the president's foil, which he loves. He loves nothing better than having a fight, and so they really have to be clear and strong at the same time, calm and resolute about what they're going to do and making sure they all stick together. It's the only way we're going to be able to move forward. Let's go to the governors. Yeah. My favorite one. I don't want to talk about all the others. Just one. Just one. Yeah. Wisconsin. Yes. Yay! Exactly. We can all thank the Lord, right?  He's a union buster, and you know, I started my political life in Wisconsin, so I have a place in my heart there. And to have watched when I was there, you know, it was Tommy Thompson, and then Governor Doyle, Democrats took it back, but then after he left, it has been Scott Walker, and to have watched that state go completely into ruin. And interestingly enough, I had since moved to Minnesota, so you know, I always lived in this comparison of Mark Dayton, and Scott Walker got elected at the same time, and to watch two completely divergent paths happen under Democratic leadership and under Republican leadership, and watch one state thrive and survive an economic crisis in Minnesota, and a governor who ran on taxing the rich and implemented that, and it actually created great economic opportunity and sustainability for Minnesota, to then watching a governor in Wisconsin who went completely the opposite way, and to have that state now in financial ruin, union busting, costing workers and people, jobs, lives, healthcare, all that kind of stuff. So it is quite to watch yesterday, to watch a superintendent, a teacher. Actually, now interesting, both Wisconsin and Minnesota have teachers as their governors. Oh, shoot. Yeah. So I think that... Do we have who that is? Tim Walsh, who was a former congressman and was a former teacher out of Mankato, became the governor, and your first Native American lieutenant governor in the state of Minnesota. But Wisconsin, so it was fantastic to watch that happen in Wisconsin, to finally see that shift the tide finally. Well, what about the legislature? Wisconsin. Wisconsin. I don't know the final turnout of it. They had been a solid red. Yeah, they had supported him. And I'm not sure how the House seats and state senate turned out in Wisconsin. I know in Minnesota, they took back the House, but I think did not take back the Senate, but that's, you know... Two out of three. Two out of three, yeah. But Indiana seemed to be more red than ever. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know... It's home. Yep. And I think, you know, we cannot... We constantly kind of underestimate that... And I don't want to call him Trump voters because I don't really know. I think he just brings out whatever this is, but you know, he went and campaigned in Indiana. And, you know, we cannot underestimate that effect because it does... He has an impact, and we can't ignore it as much as we would love to because what he is saying is completely offensive. But I think as a party, we've made some dents in those red states, and we need to look at what that is and how we expand that. We have to understand that there's always just going to be a certain majority of people. We are never going to convince to support us. But how do we expand our electorate and how do we bring more people in? Well, I think when you look, Mitt Romney is now a senator. Senator? How do you tell yet? But he's... He's such a... I hate to say nice Republican. He's what they call a moderate Republican, right? We don't have a lot left anymore. Yes. That's what I was going to say. I remember when they were all like... Exactly. Like that used to be the... Yeah, it's kind of a shame.  My dad was a lifelong Republican, but he was what we tend to refer to kind of that old-school social justice Republican. And they don't exist at all anymore, right? So that's kind of... I was very proud that before he passed away, he voted for Barack Obama as... Because he was that social justice and really felt like... As a country that we... It was inconceivable to him that we would not elect someone just because of the color of their skin, which I laughed because I wanted to be like, I don't know where you live, but clearly that happens a lot, but it spoke to that need, you know, for him it was... It was time. And I think he would not recognize Republican Party today if he were still alive. No. And in 1964, which, of course, I remember, it was the Republicans that really supported the Civil Rights Act. Absolutely, right? And the Democrats... LBJ said, we've lost the Democrats for generations. Right? You had the Dixie Crats back then, right? So it was a totally different... They left, yeah. But it's interesting, those were all your Southern Democrats who are now your Southern Republicans. Right. So the same people just shifted parties. So it's kind of an interesting... And now we're saying that although, you can see the movement in the south finally happening, and while we didn't win-win outright, you definitely see the shift happening. You've got contested Governors' Race in Georgia still happening, and they're going to take that to a recount. You've got now the Senate... the Governor and Senate seat in Florida. Titus could be, and it was also going to go to a recount. We probably won't know for weeks. But you definitely see that demographic and the shift. And even if you look into Kentucky and Tennessee, while those Senate seats lost, the gain in the percentage point of the number of voters that are Democrats has substantially increased. I think as much as I hate to say this, I think that we have to thank Trump. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because from the day he was elected, I have not seen this kind of mobilizing energy, what not, since the 60s. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, sometimes as human beings, we have our bad that it takes to we're on the precipice of losing everything we have before we finally do something. And I think that's what he has motivated, that we're really understanding that our rights as people are at risk. We need to take a break. Okay. And we will be back in 60 seconds. We'll see you. Aloha. I am Howard Wig. I am the proud host of Cold Green for Think Tecawaii. I appear every other Monday at 3, and I have really, really exciting guests on the exciting topic of energy efficiency. Hope to see you there. I'm Jay Fidel, Think Tec. Think Tec loves energy. I'm the host of Mina, Marco, and me, which is Mina Morita, former chair of the PUC, former legislator, and Energy Dynamics, a consulting organization in energy. Marco Mangelsdorf is the CEO of Provision Solar in Hilo. Every two weeks, we talk about energy, everything about energy. Come around and watch us. We're on at noon on Mondays, every two weeks on Think Tec. Aloha. Hi, Marcia. And today, we are talking to my dear friend, and you all know I only talk to dear friends, Laura Nevis. Who is the ex- Nevit. Nevit. Nevit. Nevit. Only one Nevit. That's her. She is the executive director of the Democratic Party of Hawaii. And Laura, we are talking about yesterday's historic election. I know. It didn't all turn out, but most of it. Yeah. Listen, let's talk about other Democratic victories. Kansas governor.  Kansas. One of the reddest, reddest states, just to look to the Democratic governor. I mean, it's shocking. Right. But yay. In a good way. A woman. And Laura Kelly. Yep. Yeah.  And we had to head it up, Trump's right, his voter suppression task force. Oh, wow. Right. And so, yeah, I mean, that one is truly a, thank the Lord, you know, there is hope for all of those things. Oh, Jackie Rosen. Jackie Rosen out of Nevada. Yes. Yeah, fantastic. That was a late one. We didn't know. I didn't see it till this morning.   And yeah, she is right. So, like I said, we have, there are just so many things about yesterday that you can look at that are just amazing, amazing. That I think outweigh the kind of, like I said, the disappointments that we've had. The craziest things I read was about the man in Nevada that got elected and he's been dead since October. Yep. Yeah. Isn't that funny? Only in Nevada with a brothel owner, first of all, to be able to run for the state house, die and still get elected. So, it was kind of funny. And Trump, campaign for him knowing he was dead. Right. So, it's kind of, it's Nevada what you want to do. Yay. Yay. I just love that story. It's just, just precious.   But it's countless, countless hours of that put in. But at the end of the day, it's kind of a crapshoot because it's up to the voters to go to the polls and cast their ballot. And we don't know ultimately how it's going to turn out until the results come in. And so you get some of these fun surprises that are like, really, you would have. We have the women in New Mexico, native, first Native American women to go to Congress. I mean that, I mean, again. But I have a question about that. Yeah. Because Camilla Harris is also Native American. She's in the Senate. Oh, okay. Different house. Right. So this is kind of a, but again, another historical. We had many, many firsts last night. I actually got to meet Deborah. And when I was in Chicago this summer for a DNC meeting, phenomenal woman. And she's going to be, that's just about time we had always. Connecticut. First black woman. First black woman to Congress. Oh, wow. Yep. I think we got our first, who's the first openly game governor? Oh, shoot. Now I've lost. I can't remember what state now. Anyway. I know. I saw him. I know. I'm totally, I'm like too many, too many going on. I can't remember. Two Muslim American women. Yep. So one is out of Michigan, she's from Pakistan. And the other is a woman out of Minnesota and she's a Somali refugee. So not only is Ilhan Omar our, you know, second one, we kind of have two. I don't know if she's a woman. Omar came when she was 12 years old. Well, nobody, keep going the first Muslim. Only one of them can be first. I think the woman from Michigan. It says first two. Right. So, but Ilhan will be our first refugee, Somali refugee at Congress, which I think is, you know, given caravan, all this kind, I think is a voice much, much needed to be in Congress. And I, and I'll just give a shout out Ilhan I know personally have known to say that. She's going to be awesome and is, you know. Well, now yesterday in the middle of the election, I saw where Ms. Abrams running for governor in Georgia. Correct. They filed an emergency lawsuit. What does that mean? So, it was an emergency stay, because polls closed at a certain time and they had such problems, especially in a couple of precincts of voting machines not working, all sorts of continued voter suppression tactics and such long, long lines of people waiting that they had to actually go get an emergency order to keep the polls open so that people could continue to vote. And so, they were casting ballots in Georgia well past 10 p.m. last night, which is part of why we don't also have full results. And I, another place where I got up this morning and they are saying, you might actually see a lawsuit happen in Georgia against Kemp and voter suppression tactics, but we'll get all the votes counted first and see actually how it turns out and then go from there. Yeah, well, they did have voter suppression to begin with. Oh, yeah. We knew that going in. Well, they tried everything in the book, right, and then when that failed, it was just, you know, that Hawaii we always talk about low voter turnout when really there's nothing to vote for. Yeah. Well, it's hard in your general here, right? Most of your high turnout turns out in your primary. Yes. That's the big day. That's the big day here and that turnout tends to be pretty good. But then we already know. Then you already know going into your general, although 51% in Hawaii in a general is up from what it normally is. We are looking what we are comparing. Right. Are we comparing 51% of registered voters or 51% of the people eligible to vote? Well, it's 51% of your eligible voters voted. I don't think that's right. I think it should be 51% of people that bothered to register. Well, that's what it is. It's if you registered to vote. If you registered, but not those that are eligible you can count them anyway. You don't count, right? So you only look at your people who are registered to vote and who actually then turned out voting. But it's still up an increase for Hawaii, which is fantastic. And, you know, it's still that work to do. Oh, yes. So a long way to go. But an increase will take an increase and that clearly shows people more engaged to the cycle and participating.  It engages people in different places and it helps to energize the electric problem. Well, now we, I know we are the Democrats, but I was pleased to see two Republicans win. Yeah, I know. Just because. Obviously, I think, No, I don't expect you to, but I, you know, I think that just because there is, you know, a place for having healthy discourse and competition and I think a little bit of voter apathy is that when you don't, when there isn't anything to drive that, it, that's kind of what hurts us. So. Yeah, because that's where we get, oh, there's nothing to vote for. Right. Except this time there was the con con and the increased. Right. Yeah. So, people actually read the questions. They did. And I actually got a lot of calls. We got a lot of calls of the office, people wanting, because they wanting information, which was helpful. And so I think we do see where people get energizes around issues. It's not really around candidates. And I think that's also why you saw Democrats winning across the board is they were actually out talking about issues, not, they weren't, they weren't talking about immigration. They were talking about job. Right. And when they did that, they won. And we saw that here in Hawaii. I think what increased is being able to talk about issues that are important to Hawaii. The con con was a very interesting debate to have.  I found it fascinating, this idea that you have enshrined in your Constitution putting this to a vote every 10 years. Right. And so, that I think is, it creates a space every 10 years about what's important to Hawaii. And do we want to change what our existing rules are? Or do we think they're okay for now? And I think that's an okay question to ask. It is. Right. As a party, we decided, right, that we wanted folks to vote no on that. But having that conversation is good. And even the con and discussion ultimately not, the courts decided it was an invalid question, always important questions like, how are we funding education? How are we paying our teachers? How are we making sure that our students, every student in the state of Hawaii has an education that is worthy? Right. Well, I have a question about that. $2 billion in the budget for the Department of Education. Right. And yet, we have 573 classrooms in deferred maintenance. That includes the university. Mm-hmm. Deferred maintenance. Mm-hmm. We have teachers that say they're not getting paid right. Mm-hmm. And all these other things. Where does $2 billion go? Exactly. I think that is the question for your state legislature. That is my question. Right. I know. Where does $2 billion go? If we have deferred maintenance, teachers complaining, we lost 400 teachers last year, they have, right? They're a legitimate question. Legitimate question. Legitimate questions and discussions to be having about the funding of our education system in Hawaii and how we do that and what it looks like.  A lot of states have it, some do, some don't. But certainly one of the things we know that a properly funded education system is a healthier education system. We know that paying our teachers an adequate wage makes for better teachers and so, and better teachers means a better education for your kids. These are people that spend eight hours plus of their day with your children. Yes. You would think you would want them paid adequately. They should be number one on the pay scale. You would think, but it's interesting that that is often not the case. Okay. Yeah. One more thing I thought came to the fore as never before and that was Oha. People really got involved in that one. Yeah. And, you know, it's a challenge for the Democratic Party because it's the nonpartisan race and so we don't take, you know, we don't get involved. And most of them are Democrats. And most of them are Democrats and so we would never take sides against one member against another. But I do have to say it was actually lovely to hear the amount of conversation going on around those statewide, you know, there's statewide seats so they should be and as a party we have nonpartisan member, members who run in nonpartisan races. So, because I think the whole city council runs it. But Oha won in particular again, that's a vital piece of Hawaii and we, you know, there should be more conversation about it. I would hope more people would learn more about their Oha candidates and vote on those. I think a lot of people feel like I'm not native Hawaiian, I does not my, the residents of Hawaii and the work they do impacts all of us, whether or not you're a native Hawaiian or not. And we should be supporting that work. Yeah, and they get what, about 14 million a year and, yeah, a lot of years and the DOE gets to billion. Right. Hello. Yeah. Something, something's not, but I was impressed with the numbers of young people that got elected in Hawaii. Right. And that happens. We're seeing a generational shift just across the board and everything. And that happens and it's a good thing. We need to not be afraid of young people coming in and getting involved because we're not, you know, you, me, we're not going to be around forever. You know, other people need to kind of come do this work. Well, one last thing I saw in the young lady, the Republican Andrea Topola reporters, they're all young and they're all excited and even last evening when they knew she wasn't going to win, the excitement in that room, the energy, that's the new movement and not just her, but we saw that in Oha. We saw that across the board. Right. And I think Democratic Party that's part of our work, right? How do we tap into that? What are the issues that we need to be talking about that we're not? How do we engage them into leadership positions? How do we get them, you know, we had a lot of young folks who ran for office in the primary. They unfortunately didn't make it past the primary, but we need to build on that, right? Their voices are important and they need to be at the table. Well, thank you so much, Laura. This is always a pleasure talking to you. We have fun. Anytime. Anytime. Yeah. I have not missed an election since 1958. So, I am a political junkie and I love it. That's your hook, you got it. Thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Aloha.