Good afternoon. It's good to see you all. There's nowhere else that I'd rather be right now than listening to this panel of experts talk about a problem that is on all of our minds, and it's a great honor and privilege to be here listening to their remarks on Russia and Ukraine. My name is Dr. Daniel A. Morris, and I'll be the moderator for today. It's my job right now, and my pleasure to introduce our panel. And then after the panel we'll have remarks from our respondent and a time for questions and comments from the audience. So I will just begin by introducing the individuals that you see on the stage before you starting here to my immediate left with Dr. Nicholas K. Gvostev. Dr. Gvostev is professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He holds non-residential fellowships with the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs, and he's a member of the Loisach Group, which is a collaboration between the Munich Security Conference and the Marshall Center to enhance U.S. and Germany's security partnership. He's a contributing editor for the national interest, and he has taught at Baylor, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard Extension, and Brown universities. Next we have Dr. Angela Kaczewski, who is an associate professor of political science at Arcadia University in suburban Philadelphia. Her research falls in the fields of conflict resolution and critical security studies, and she focuses on divided societies, identity boundaries, and Russian-speaking minorities in Ukraine, the Baltic states, and Moldova. Next we have Dr. Lasha Chantarise, who is a professor and director of the graduate programs in diplomacy and international relations. He earned his PhD in international relations from Queens University of Kingston, Ontario, and his research interests are at the intersection of diplomacy and forced international politics, and his academic publications are in the areas of geopolitics, Russian foreign policy, Canadian foreign policy, the Arctic, the Black Sea Basin, and international politics in the Caucasus. And finally, to introduce our respondent for the afternoon, we have Dr. Lisa Chaldise, who has dedicated her work as a lawyer, educator, and author, and activist to the development of the rule of law, as well as the defense of human rights. And I'm very eager to hear from all of our presenters and also from our respondent and from you after their presentations have ended. So thank you all for coming, and I will now turn it over to our first speaker. Excellent. Hello, everybody. I'm really happy to be here. I'm happy to be back at Norwich. And delighted to speak with you today. My paper is going to consider this concept of Ukraine as a borderland. It's often been considered sort of between East and West, and I'm going to present some of my ideas about that. I'm going to focus, given what's going on with this war, and I think most of us are sort of shocked by the scale and the brutality of this conflict that is going on right now. And a lot has been written about NATO expansion, European Union enlargement, Ukrainian neutrality. I'm not denying at all that these things are important, although I don't think that this war is about Ukrainian neutrality or NATO expansion at all, and that's something maybe we can discuss later. I'm instead going to not deny that those things are important, but rather really focus on some of the important identity issues that I think give additional kind of context and perspective as to what's going on. So I'm going to focus on three main areas very quickly, given the constraints of time. I'm going to talk a little bit about two core concepts that are within the current Russian national identity building project, and that is the concept of the near abroad, which is a way to characterize neighboring states, and the more recent concept of the Russian world. I'm then going to look a little bit at the Eurasian Economic Union project that is led by Russia, and the European Union project, which obviously is happening in the same space. And then finally I'm going to look a little bit at some of the identity dynamics that we have seen particularly since 2014 with the annexation occupation of Crimea, particularly among Russian-speaking Ukrainians. And I want to say also, I think it's a very, very important point to underscore when we talk about Russian-speaking Ukrainians, we're not talking about Russians who happen to be living in Ukraine. We're talking about Ukrainians who, for various reasons of history, have over time Russian has become their native language, but they're not Russian, and I think that's an important point. So let's talk a little bit about how we got from the Soviet Union to the so-called Russian world. The Soviet Union, as Putin has sort of described as this enormous geopolitical catastrophe and tragedy for Russia, was actually led by Russia and some of the other states. So Boris Yeltsin as president of the Russian Federation, together with the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine, met together and dissolved the Soviet Union as a way to try to free up their republics to pursue the kinds of reforms that they wanted to pursue, and that they felt that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was holding them back for. However, the CIS, the Commonwealth of Independent States, which they created to sort of replace the Soviet Union, was really underspecified, very vague when it was agreed to as to how actually all of these things would operate in principle, but really in detailed practice. And so pretty close after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it became pretty clear that there would be really serious consequences for Russia for a number of reasons, strategic reasons, right? You've got bases that are now located in different states, and you've got different borders, you have all kinds of things that are happening. And so for this reason, I think it's not really surprising that Russia has defined the former Soviet republics as part of their special sphere of influence, and there's a good amount of evidence that Yeltsin sort of assumed or had a vision that the Commonwealth of Independent States would operate pretty much the same as the Soviet Union, they would just get rid of communism, but that the Commonwealth would be strong, there would be a common market, a common currency, sort of unified military structure, but none of the other republics of the Soviet Union were interested in that, and so the CIS being underspecified just never fulfilled that role. So Russia in response has tried to create sort of this sphere of influence within the neighboring states, and initially this wasn't such a big problem because Boris Yeltsin did respect the independence of neighboring states and followed a fairly liberal sort of rules-based foreign policy, but for a number of reasons, including perceived discrimination of Russian speakers abroad, particularly in the Baltic states, perceived sort of dismissal of Russia's national insecurity interest by the West, concerns about Russia being shut out of some kind of a European integration project, put a lot of pressure on Russia to turn to a more kind of nationalist-oriented foreign policy, and as the economic situation grew worse and the influence of this sort of liberal Western-oriented economist diminished this pressure to kind of have a more strong focus on Russia's national interest emerged. Therein we get this term called the near abroad, which emerged in mainstream discourse in 1993, when then Foreign Minister Andrei Kozarev laid out the tenets for a new Russian foreign policy concept. And the term in Russian, at least to my ear, has sort of a connotation where the word for near kind of connotates a feeling of closeness that in turn gives this sort of distinction between territory that is abroad out there that's a really truly sovereign state and these states that are kind of near us and they aren't therefore fully sovereign. So to be kind of the close abroad means, well, you're technically kind of a sovereign state, but not really, right? This is how at least it appears to my ear. So Russian policy has been to sort of assert a special role in this area has sort of asserted the right and the responsibility to exert special influence in these territories. And in fact, Russian policy has articulated the concept of compatriots as a category of non-citizens living outside of Russia who, nonetheless, do under a certain extent fall under Russian responsibility. And this is written into Russian law where they assert a special responsibility for these compatriots who are not living in Russia and are not Russian citizens. So even though this compatriot status may not be recognized and, frankly, isn't recognized by other states and is therefore pretty symbolic, it's pretty clear that this gives Russia a formal and systematic way to assert and potentially, as we see now, exert influence beyond its geographic boundaries. The compatriot policy also exists within this context of the Russian world, the Russian world concept, which posits Russia as a distinct civilization that transcends Russia's territorial borders. This Russian world asserts that Russian civilization is a naturally existing civilizational community. So Russia is not just Russian culture. Russian national identity is not part of European culture. It is a naturally separately existing civilizational identity. And it emphasizes the cultural basis of identity, which is rooted in Russian language and a shared Orthodox Christian faith. The civilization shares a common past and is currently, according to Putin, who's been quite explicit about this, wrongfully and even perversely divided into separate states, which he says has resulted in the greatest divided nation on Earth. So in this context, Ukraine and Belarus are seen not only as members of Russia's natural zone of special influence, but actually as integral pieces and integral parts of the Russian world based upon Eastern Slavic civilization and they are not separate nations. And I'll come back to talk about that in a bit. So this kind of view at this natural special role for Russia is obviously not shared by all states and certainly not by Ukraine, who has very consistently been very steadfast regardless of which political parties in power about Ukrainian sovereignty and independence. So let's talk a little bit about the European and Russian projects within this kind of what you might think of as the shared neighborhood. Russia and EU, and again, I'm focusing on identity issues today. This isn't to ignore or discount the other material interests in economic integration. I'm going to focus on the identity issues. Russia and the EU have each asserted and defined a special role for themselves in this region that goes beyond their boundaries, that is based upon both economic interests and shared cultural values. Okay, so they're both doing sort of the same thing. I'm not equating between the two projects obviously, but they're motivated by some of the same narratives. Each of these imagines a sort of normative cultural space that unifies populations beyond geographic borders and an economic zone that benefits from deeper economic integration. We have the European neighborhood policy, which was brought into place in 2004 because of an expansion of the European Union that required the European Union to start to think about making a formal relationship with states that now became on actual EU borders. And the idea behind the European or the European neighborhood policy was to include states from the former Soviet Union and also countries along the Mediterranean basis in a regional engagement and cooperation policy. In 2009, an actual specific policy called the Eastern Partnership was brought into place that had even more formal relations with the Eastern European states and were based upon three different objectives. First was to accelerate political association to create more formal and strong political relations. Second was to further economic integration through association memberships and other economic agreements. And third, for providing for citizen mobility. This would be in visa-free regimes and work permits. And again, an idea of creating greater contact between those areas. And I'm sorry, I went ahead too fast, but that's okay. We'll come back to this. The goal of this project was to build greater prosperity through interdependence and the creation of a free trade zone that requires Eastern European participating states to meet EU standards for business, finance, banking, and trade. And the idea was that strengthening governance and increasing prosperity in the neighborhood and deepening regional integration would lead to greater stability and prosperity in the region. The problem that we have, however, is that this comes into direct conflict with Putin's plans for economic integration in the same exact neighborhood, given that signing an association agreement with the European Union would preclude membership in the Eurasian Economic Union. And even if this was not the intention of the European Union, this was indeed seen by Moscow as a direct effort to try to isolate Russia from its neighbors. Okay, gotta go fast. All right, so we're gonna go beyond the European Union and I'll just jump in to talk a little bit about some of the identity issues. We have a lot of discussion about a so-called two-Ukrainian narrative, where the Eastern part of Ukraine, as Russian-speaking and sort of geopolitically oriented towards Russia, the Western part of Ukraine is Ukrainian-speaking and sort of geopolitically oriented towards the West. And there are a lot of reasons why this narrative may or may not have been a fruitful or valid way of thinking about Ukraine in the past. But certainly since independence, we've seen a very clear movement towards a civic model of national identity and not an ethnic model of national identity. We do have a little bit of a challenge because on the one hand, Ukraine has very clearly articulated a national polity that is multi-lingual and multi-ethnic and cultural, it's civic in nature, it's inclusive. But on the other hand, the nation-building project has been based upon promoting the Ukrainian language and Ukrainian culture. So we've got these two things happening at the same time. So we have seen some divisions since independence, but what we have seen since 2014 with the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbass is an increasing identity that is civic in nature based upon understanding Ukraine as a native language and identifying Ukraine as the homeland and accepting Ukrainian language as the mother tongue even if you don't speak the language. And this is a really important point. People will say, Ukrainian is my native language, whether or not they can speak Ukrainian and this is because it has become for them an identity marker. So I'm just gonna make three quick observations because it's a bit too early within this war. I'd like to think that the war will be over tomorrow and we can start to draw conclusions. But for now, I'd like to make three observations to toss out and maybe there might be a distance of discussion. The first is that I think that what we see with the incredible resistance that is happening in Ukraine today, where Russian speaking cities are being targeted ruthlessly. Kharkiv is a Russian speaking city. Mariupol is a Russian speaking city. Herson is a Russian speaking city. And they are resisting and they are saying, we are Ukrainian. So I think what we can see is that this whole Russian world concept is a complete and abject failure first in soft power and now in hard power because they are not winning the war. And I also observed that the two Ukraine's concept, if it ever had any validity, is completely dead because obviously we are all one Ukraine. And I'd like to posit that I think we can stop thinking about Ukraine as a borderland. If it ever was one, it certainly is not one any longer. So with that, I will finish. Thank you. So I'm speaking to you on the lessons that can be learned from Russia's intervention in Syria. Do I have a point? No, no PowerPoint. So I can go ahead and blank that one. There we are. Let me first offer the observation that this would be a different presentation or the presentation would be received differently if this was being presented to you prior to February 24th. And so I would echo the caution of Center for Naval Analysis expert Michael Kaufman who says prior to February 24th, we had a tendency to really overrate and over exaggerate the Russian military to say that they were 12 feet tall. And now because of the first three weeks of the campaign in Ukraine, he says we have a tendency now to go into an opposite direction which is equally unhelpful, which is to think of the Russians as two feet tall. And one of the questions that may come out in our discussion is why some of the lessons that the Russians demonstrated in Syria, they did not apply in Ukraine? And is that a policy failure, an intelligence failure? Is this just simply the bureaucratic reaction that most of the Russian military establishment that kind of pushed back against some of the innovative techniques that were being used in Syria and said we don't want to apply them anywhere else, I think is something that we're still waiting to get more information on. I'd like to offer what I would call a triple disclaimer in making my remarks. And the first of course, since my day job is to work for the U.S. Naval War College, I am presenting here in a personal capacity, I'm not speaking in any way on behalf of the U.S. Navy, representing a U.S. government position, or even for that matter relying on any U.S. government resources for my conclusions. Everything is based upon my own open source analysis. The second disclaimer is when you present on a topic like this and you say the lessons of Syria, I'm doing this as an analyst. We have a tendency now in the academic and scholarly worlds to confuse analysis and advocacy, or to confuse analysis with approval. That is to say if there are lessons to be learned from Syria then therefore you must be saying well what the Russians did is good or we should be, you're advocating for it and instead I simply want to look back, look at what the Russians have been doing since they intervened in Syria in 2015, as a basis for us to understand both is there a new paradigm for Russian intervention, are there lessons that the U.S. and allied militaries can learn, in some cases we cannot apply those lessons because of our own rules of engagement and traditions of war fighting, but there may be lessons that may be applicable to us. And the final disclaimer is in presenting this kind of 30 or 60,000 foot view, we can lose sight of the fact that in the end we're talking about human beings whether in Syria or in Ukraine, particularly who are on the receiving end of violence, and so again when we speak very analytically about it it may, we don't want to lose sight of the fact that at the end of the day this affects people directly in terms of being killed, being wounded, being driven from their homes, having their homes destroyed. So I just wanted to put that out there. All right, basically there are four lessons I think we should pull from the Russian intervention in Syria and I think that they are important particularly for the U.S. national security community because the U.S. national security community for the most part got the Russian intervention into Syria wrong. When the Russians announced in September of 2015 that they were going to directly enter into the Syrian civil war, the U.S. reaction first was to mirror image and to say well Russia's not going to succeed in Syria because the United States has had problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, we assume that the Russian intervention in Syria would mirror the type of interventions that the U.S. had been doing in the Middle East. We also mirror imaged and assumed that a Russian intervention in Syria was more or less going to be a smaller scale repeat of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan in 1979. And so based on that analysis President Obama felt relatively confident in predicting in September of 2015 that the Russian intervention would fail, Russia would be bogged down in a quagmire, this would strain the Russian military, this would strain the Russian economy which already was under minor sanctions and you saw from the first panel perhaps not really impactful sanctions on the Russian economy. And instead we look at all the way to 2022 and the picture in Syria looked a lot different than it was being predicted. And then there are basically, so I want to go through what the four lessons were. The first is that the Russians had carefully studied U.S. interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, Defense Minister, then Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov who was remarking this in 2006, 2007, that they were closely studying the kind of successes and failures of U.S. counterinsurgency in Iraq, what the U.S. was doing in Afghanistan, trying to get a sense of what things were working and what things were not. And the Russians, not unlike many American journalists who were observing both the Iraq and Afghan efforts really picked up on the overreach of U.S. efforts, that the U.S. had established victory conditions in Afghanistan by the end of December 2001, had effectively established victory conditions in Iraq by the end of 2003, but the mission had expanded, the mission grew, lots new parameters came in, all the way down to the United States military trying to set up a stock exchange in Iraq, trying to set up media enterprises, teaching Afghans how to use PowerPoint, making sure that they were perfect PowerPoint rangers, and all of this kind of overreach developed and then prevented, in the rushing view, the U.S. from being able to establish conditions of victory on the ground militarily and then to use that to either push forward a political settlement at best or stalemate at worst. Instead, the Russians in Syria have relied on what they call as a strategy of, quote, limited action, that is to not let mission creep come in or to start defining new goals. They went into Syria with two very explicit goals. One was to prevent Bashar al-Assad from being overthrown, making sure that he was not driven out of Damascus, and the second was to ensure that he would remain a player in Syrian politics. Those were the goals, the mission was geared to meeting those goals, it was geared to ensuring that at the end of the day, Assad stayed in Damascus and that he would remain a player in Syrian politics and by extension a player in Middle Eastern politics. The idea that the regime would be, quote, stable enough, not perfect, not even necessarily having to control all of Syria, the extent to which Assad has regained control over Syria was not part of the original Russian mission set. It is a byproduct of the Russian intervention but wasn't their initial goal. And that meant you needed to secure the capital, you needed to secure certain lines of communications, you needed to secure strong points across the country, but you did not need to have a presence in every village in Hamlet and entity in Syria in order to be able to influence the process. Second, the Russian military in Syria once it intervened focused on destroying capabilities and fighting capacity of the opposition, not again to occupy territory. Occupying territory was secondary to drawing out the opposition, drawing out their military capabilities, drawing out their supply lines, and then using primarily air power with the judicious use of land power and some naval power to bring that about. And that again, very important not to occupy territory. Instead to use military force to isolate and diminish points of resistance. And the Russians were therefore happy to negotiate lots of local settlements, basically along the lines, as long as you're not actively opposing us and Assad we're not going to come in and really interfere with what you're doing. So ending up empowering a lot of local authorities, particularly in Sunni villages, and then of course the de facto relationship with the Kurds in Syria, where the Kurds effectively have had a, for the last six years have operated in a state of de facto truce with the Assad government. The third lesson was the Russians avoided the responsibilities of governance. This was something that they very much took from the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also from the Soviet experience in Afghanistan. That once you begin to assume the responsibilities of governance, the mission expands and the ability for you to take on more actions where the probability of failure increases or people perceive that you have failed because you have not delivered on governance. Instead again, the Russians really pushed forward in sometimes even in opposition to people in the Assad government who very much wanted to restore as much Syrian government control over as much of Syria as possible, the Russians essentially saying that's not our job here and I'm probably gonna mangle the Arabic, but the Russians really pushed forward what were known as the Itifakwat al-Musalah, these kinds of reconciliation agreements, these deconfliction agreements, you go into a village, you meet the real power brokers as something else the Russians learned from our experience in Iraq that the official power holder may not in fact be the person who is really the mover and shaker. I think some of the people that I've talked to in the coalition provisional authority realized after some time in Iraq that politicians weren't really the movers, if they were Shia politicians it was the Shia clergy and that they were talking to the wrong people. They should have been talking to people in Najaf, not people who said well I represent this political party and so the Russians went in, they would identify and they did have some experience in this obviously in how Chechnya was pacified both by brutal tactics but also by identifying power brokers and deciding how you can leverage them in order to get them just simply to agree to stop fighting you. And again, not worrying about governance, not worrying about democracy, not worrying about can they operate PowerPoint or do they meet a whole list of criteria or standards. Finally, the Russians in Syria really focused on a light footprint in the sense of not sending in large amounts of ground forces, focusing primarily on air power, some maritime power, rotating land forces in, using Syria and this was one of the things that I think the US side did not pick up on was that essentially saying well instead of spending money from our exercise budget we will use Syria to exercise our forces and so interestingly enough and again what we've seen in Ukraine raises some questions but essentially by 2019, pretty much all of the regional commanders had rotated through Syria, a good chunk of the officer corps had rotated through Syria, almost all of the Russian air force pilots had gone through Syria at one point or another so there was this sense of but light footprint and never a large Russian contingent at any one point. Focusing on, as we've seen, use of a lot of indiscriminate firepower, right, not putting people on the ground but instead using air and artillery strikes to substitute for people and to use that as a strategy, the siege and starve strategy and some of the Russian generals are very explicit. We don't want to fight block for block in a place like Aleppo, we'd rather create conditions that make Aleppo unlivable so that the opposition leaves and then we can move in after. Finally and probably most critically, what we've seen in Syria is the use of militias and mercenaries which I think is really speaking to some changes that we may be seeing in mid 21st century warfare, recruitment, particularly from some of Russia's ethnic minorities to go into Syria, very effective Chechen and English units. Again, part of the reason that in some cases the these Russian Muslim nationality units were better at reaching these deals with Sunni leaders than Alawite army commanders in Syria or Iranian Revolutionary Guard commanders because they could play on a common Sunni heritage but most importantly and critically has been the rise of the private military companies relying on private military companies both as a strategy for keeping down your uniformed casualties for fear that that might create problems at home, giving you a degree of plausible deniability to operate and to act and when necessary mercenary companies, if their actions become problematic they can be abandoned as we saw in 2018 where mercenary companies clashing with the US essentially were left to their own fate. So with that we have these lessons prior to the start of the invasion of Ukraine. There was a sense both in the Russian strategic community and also in the American strategic community that Syria was paving a way forward for how Russia would intervene. What we're now seeing in Ukraine is calling into question whether that is correct or not. So I think we'll still be debating the lessons of Syria but also determining whether or not this reflects a fundamental change in how the Russian government plans to use the military instrument of statecraft and how it links with its diplomatic and economic efforts. Good afternoon. The title of this presentation was offered to the organizers last fall, I think, because at that time I was expecting a war between Russia and Ukraine and I was thinking about writing something, presenting something to explain why war was likely between Russia and Ukraine. I've written about this since Russia's potential conflicts with Georgia and Ukraine since 2007, after Mr. Putin made a lengthy presentation at the Munich Security Conference in February of 2007 in which he pretty much outlined what he intended to do in coming decades. Was not taking seriously, that was an important watershed in Russia's foreign policy towards its neighbors and the next important event was the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state against Russian objections and following up to that, summer of 2008, Georgia and Ukraine were candidates of joining NATO, they themselves believed they were candidates, but NATO summit in Bucharest refused to grant them accession papers like a plan to become NATO members at some point in the near future, specifically because of German and French objections, even though the U.S. administration under Mr. Bush supported the plan and the U.K. supported it as well. And after that, this is August 2008 and Russia invades Georgia. Not gonna take much of your time, I can answer your questions if you have questions about this, my paper more extensive than my presentation, obviously, but the argument is very simple. The United States and Western allies have been pursuing policies of appeasement to Russia since 2007 and that is a direct cause of the war in Ukraine. Among other things such as the outdated state of American strategic arsenal and inability of Europeans to find the common ground when it comes to policies, to the Russian policies. So, general line of reasoning here is that neither Georgia or Ukraine represents a direct threat to Russia, they're smaller countries, they don't really pose any significant cultural or religious or any other economical or political security threats. Russian objective here is to defeat NATO. That's Mr. Putin's personal objective and the people who are around him helping him in this quest. So, the final, Ukraine is not the final step, the final step is attacking a NATO country, more or less a significant country. I don't want to speak in these kinds of terms but I want to communicate to you Russian thinking about this, a more marginal NATO member causing significant damage to the country and if NATO fails to respond, especially United States fails to respond in a decisive manner. And may I also mention that sanctions are not decisive in any significant way. In the Russian thinking sanctions are actually a sign of capitulation. Sanctions tell them we are not gonna fight, you can go ahead and do whatever, we are not gonna use force. That's how they hear this in Moscow. So, once Russia attacks, you pick a country on the periphery of NATO and NATO fails to respond, that's the end of NATO and that's the end of US influence and prestige and power in Europe and that the game is done. So, on this path and it's coming, Ukraine has been significant in this process because Ukraine has managed to make Russia stumble, which no one expected, including the American administration as if we are to believe what they're telling us from the screens of television. The Russian government didn't expect it either, invading, initially they deployed about 68 battalions into Ukraine and that number increased dramatically after a few days. So, they had fuel for about three days of operation. One battalion, Russian battalion, needs about two fuel trucks for operation per day and they didn't have enough fuel initially to sustain long-term operation, but that now has changed. So, here I am presenting a map of Georgia. Georgia is a small country. As the population is under four million, the size of Georgia, it's a smaller than state domain, it's not a large country. Russia is a northern neighbor, Turkey south, Azerbaijan and Ukraine southeast. In the west, what you see is the Black Sea and the Black Sea connects Georgia also with Ukraine and Russia and we are gonna come to that. I'm showing you a physical map of Georgia because physical geography, especially in warfare and also in diplomacy is very important. Normally, when they present you maps, they present you with a flat colored shapes that don't tell you much and then they can attach any information to it. They want you to believe. For instance, the idea that Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine could fall in three days. Now, if you were to imagine Kiev is larger than Chicago and even if no one resists surrounding and taking Chicago in three days, it's just an unbelievable idea. But a city that is well defended like Kiev is just crazy. If you imagine Kiev to be a little spot on the map, then you can imagine that. But if you realize how large the city is, it's quite difficult to understand why would someone tell you that. Now, that's the Caucasus mountains, geography. You see their elevation and the mountain, Mount Kosbegi, our Canadian friends will see this five kilometers. That's the border between Georgia and Russia. So the Russia to invade Georgia, it had two options, to cross the mountains, which you understand tall mountains are not easy to cross. Impossible to helicopters to fly over and invade from the sea. So the war started on, there is a dispute about this. August seven or eight, we are gonna come to that, why there is a discrepancy. But, excuse me, Russia invaded both from the north and from the sea. From the sea was significant because Russia had no coastal defense, none whatsoever. United States gave them rubber boats and some rifles to defend the coastline. And Georgia had no significant amount of air defenses, air force, artillery, no significant amount of anything to defend itself. Even though, as you heard from the ambassador this morning, Georgia was probably one of the most pro-American, still it remains one of the mostly American oriented states in the world. And there was a lot of talk and there is a lot of talk about strategic partnership between the United States and Georgia, but realistically, United States or anyone else didn't arm or help Georgia in any significant way, just like they didn't arm or help Ukraine in any significant way before the invasion. So there are two roads leading from Russia to Georgia that could be taken by any anyone, including the invading armed forces. And the battle that waged was north and central Georgia. The town is, there is called Skynvali. And the Georgian army resisted the invading Russian force as much as they could coming from the mountains. Black Sea Fleet was late joining the war. They came three days late and they landed on a post, amphibious assault on the Georgian coast. And once it is landed, it was useless to mount resistance anymore because the Georgian army risked to be surrounded. So the strength of the Russian army is on the flatlands. Once they are useless in the mountains, they have a hard time fighting in the mountains. But as you see the green shades, those are flatlands. Those could be transversed very quickly, very effectively by mechanized infantry. So Georgia asked for peace and a peace agreement was signed after five days of fighting. The number of factors contributed to that why war ended so quickly. Number one, Russian army wasn't ready. And the Russians realized it themselves because a couple of entrepreneurial Georgian artillery commanders engage Russian forces and did significant damage to them. Russian aircraft were shut down and they realized that the supply lines were not functioning. Historically, Russian army supply lines are in terrible shape anyway. So they were not ready and at the same time there was a forceful diplomatic intervention by United States. So appeasement is actually a theoretical concept in international relations. Most people who think about appeasement think about Chamberlain and the Hitler. It's not only that but Western governments have pursued appeasement policies towards North Korea for instance. US policy to Russia, appeasing policy actually had a name. It was called Reset and presented by Secretary Clinton to foreign minister Lavrov. Soon after the war was over. So this is a wider view of the region. The Russian objective here is to control the Black Sea. Why had they been obsessed with Crimea and Georgia? Sevastopol is the key for Russian control over the Black Sea and the Mediterranean access to Mediterranean sea. One of the key documents that allowed appeasement policy to proceed both by Europe and the United States was this report published by the European Union a year after the war ended and actually blamed Georgia for attacking Russia inside Georgia. And Georgia was blamed for opening of this war. One of the Russia's objective just like now was the militarization of Georgia and they have achieved this objective by non-allowing or lobbying Western powers not to rearm Georgia for self-defense. And one of the most outrageous steps was that Georgia resisted Russian accession to WTO, World Trade Organization and a Western partners press Georgia government to concede, to allow Russia to become a member of the WTO. If you imagine that, so the idea was that Georgia started the war and the Russian army in about 30,000 of them were passing by in the Caucasus mountains and just came across. The border is incredible claim, but that's what the European Union published in 2009. According to Russian sources, they were in Georgia in August the 7th of 2008 and other sources claim that to be in Georgia just after midnight, 2008, August 8th, 2008. So here are some of the pictures. This is a Russian accession to WTO. You see this gentleman there holding a shirt, mission accomplished, George Bush's favorite words. Here is Mr. Lavrov with Mrs. Clinton holding a reset button which was misnamed in Russian. In Russian actually it said overload instead of reset and that's why they're laughing. So Lavrov's surprise was what are we overloading and they said, well no, it's not overload, it's reset. Okay.  So in short, reset policies started by outgoing Bush administration and continued by Clinton. Trump didn't care about either about Ukraine or Georgia and here we are. So the war with Ukraine, what changed? What changed was that I think European France finally realized that Russia is going west. Is it Georgia and Crimea, they're south? The west is different, right? West is Europe. So I think now they think themselves as the next target, which is gonna happen sooner or later. Thank you. Can you see the rhythms? The class rhythms. Hello, thank you all for being here. I see classes changing right about now. So we've heard some fascinating things today. I do have a few follow-up questions. If I could start please with Dr. Kaczewski. I noticed that in your talk, the identity issue was really sort of the core and what I'm wondering is, many years ago, back in 1979, I was in Kiev and then went outside the city to a rather eerie forest where people had remembered their loved ones. Roughly two million people had died in a famine engineered by Stalin, people in the Ukraine, I mean. And in this forest, even then, all those years later, you could see these rotting wooden boards nailed to trees with the name of a loved one on it. And it was quite ghostly, quite moving. What I'm wondering is your view on the extent to which historical memory in Ukraine either impacts or does not impact the question of Ukrainian identity and if so, the extent to which that is equally true in the Russian-speaking areas? Are we going to do one at a time? Is this on? Can you guys hear me? Okay, great. I'm writing a book on this, so I'll have to remember to send you a copy when I finally finish it. I think that historical memory is one of those key points on that kind of identity boundary that I have identified that is a sticking point with regional differences. It's very difficult, for example, and I'm talking before the war, I think now this is going to change. My hypothesis is, but that'll be a different book. I think that it is very difficult for anyone who is above, see the age of 30, 35, to accept that Bandera is a national hero in Harkiv. This was difficult. Younger people saying, okay, you renamed the war. It's no longer the Great Fatherland War. It didn't go from 1941 to 1945. It started in 1939, no problem. Western Ukraine was part of Poland then. This is all a misunderstanding. Let's be open to some different interpretations, but it's very difficult for people who have any historical connection to the war. My grandfather fought in the war. My grandfather fought to liberate, in the Red Army, to liberate us from the Nazis, and those guys out there were traitors, and I can't revisit that. So there were certain pieces, I think, of historical memory that are difficult to get agreement on, but that's not unique to Ukraine. I mean, we have regional differences in how we remember history in the United States as well. So I do think that conversations about history are difficult. The nation-building project that I touched on, which has focused very much on official interpretations of history, Ukrainian language, this, this, and this, has not necessarily fit closely, I think, with where a lot of people in Odessa, and particularly in Harkiv, where I did my studies, fit. I think now there might be an unwillingness to revisit some of those questions, because Bandera seems a lot less menacing to the Ukrainian nation, but definitely historical memory has been very, it hits people in their heart. It hits people where that is my family that you're talking about. If you're old enough to have a grandparent who was alive during the war, you still care about it. For sure, I don't know if that answers your question. No, it does. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And jumping now to Dr. Chantoridze. I have actually been to the refugee camp on the supposed new border within Georgia along the military line that is guarded by Russian military and also heavily landmined. This is after Russia grabbed Alpazia in South Aseria. And I use the word grab as not really a term of art, but you know what I mean. And again, like Ukraine, Georgians have a really intense national identity and in a culture that is truly ancient. So on a sort of similar note, I actually have two questions. One, given the strength of Georgian resolve and yet a sort of lack of Western resolve, if I might put it that way, when it comes to Georgia, my two questions are one, is how important is the invisible aspect of Georgian resolve and history? For example, even under Stalin, Georgia pushed back to preserve Georgian as the state language of Georgia, even when it was a Soviet Republic. So I'm wondering about the role of both Western and Georgian resolve and also in your remarks, if I understood correctly, you seemed to be attributing a rather high level of rationality to Putin wanting to defeat NATO and so forth. What I'm wondering is to what extent, if any, do you think that Putin's personality or ego might be playing a role here with the irrational goal of reinstituting the Russian Empire? Okay, so about Georgian resolve. Georgians have been around for a long time, as you well know. They, Tbilisi Capital City, Tbilisi was between the seventh and between the eighth and 11th century was held by the Arabs. So the Georgians slowly undermined their rule and finally expelled them in the 11th century. So 300 years and that was the 11th century. So they can wait and they can outlive the Russians. There is no question about it. They're not going anywhere. But in the immediate future, they will likely remain under Russian heel because Russia is not going anywhere next couple of decades. Sorry, what was your second question? The extent to which the personality or ego of Putin to want to reconstitute the Russian Empire? No, he doesn't want to reconstitute the Russian Empire. That's a misconception. He wants to get rid of NATO. He wants to get rid of the so-called unipolar world. And Putin's rise to power is starts from the war in Kosovo, NATO Yugoslavia war. When NATO attacked Yugoslavia, claimed there was a genocide, bombed Belgrade and other cities in Yugoslavia. And that's when Stalin, excuse me, President Yeltsin was given an ultimatum either to resign, find a replacement or face a coup by generals, specifically General Iwashov and his buddies who actually organized a special operation to rescue Pristina, Kosovo. So that's when Mr. Putin was found as a head of the FSB.  Okay, thank you for that. I appreciate it. And finally, Dr. Gvozdev, a quick question. Do you see any role for nation building in American foreign policy? I think that it needs to rest first on a strong domestic foundation of support. I think that Americans have to be convinced that their own economic political or economic technological energy security rests upon the nation building enterprise. Obviously the United States has, since the end of the Cold War, been uninterested in nation building and large chunks of the world, particularly sub-Saharan Africa and then in other places. I think that in the Middle East, there was a sense that this would be done relatively quickly and easily. And then Americans soured on that experience. And I think that's one reason why, up till now, this sense that the Russians were, quote, more successful in Syria was that they were explicitly not engaged in nation building. They were engaged in regime survival. Moving forward, your question also hits on something. We're talking a lot about Ukraine today and Ukraine resistance and you can't find in, we had the governor here this morning talking about it and all of that, that question is gonna be the American domestic will to fund Ukrainian reconstruction with the same degree of fervor as providing military aid to Ukraine because that's gonna be the critical question. I mean, even if the Russians leave tomorrow, the damage that's been done in Ukraine, the geo-economic damage alone is pretty considerable. And are you gonna see Americans saying, I'm happy to fund that? And I mentioned this in a class of mine and he's in the committee room and he's saying to everyone, I want 100 million for schools and the rest of the committee says, why do we wanna build schools in Afghanistan? He said, you were willing to do half a billion for military aid, but not to put that in. And so I think that will be, that's gonna be the real test because if we don't have that, your question will be answered next year when the Ukraine Freedom Reconstruction Act is stalled in committee and doesn't move. And Georgia has already experienced this. Poor Moldova, which got stuck under Jackson Vanick for 20 years and couldn't escape it because that bill could never leave committee. So I'd say the jury's out on that. Thank you very much. Thank you all for such a rich and thought-provoking conversation. I would like to now, we have about 10 minutes left and I'd like to invite anyone from the audience who'd like to ask a question of the panel, please come down to the microphones right here. And what we'll do is, given the short amount of time, I'd like to have maybe the first few people who can ask a question, ask a question. Panelists will think about it. We'll have, we'll field another couple of questions and then we'll, and then we'll let the panelists kind of tackle them all as a concluding comment on this session. So please come on down and feel free to ask a question of our panelists. And as we're waiting for that, I also just want to invite other panelists. So Professor Chaldise, thank you so much for just starting the conversation. And I want to invite our other panelists to answer questions that Professor Chaldise directed to others. So if you heard a question that she asked and you really want to take it up, please feel free. And you can think about that and let's start here and then we'll go here. This question is for Dr. Vozdev. You said that in Syria, the Russians were using a lot of militia, but the reason for that was to provide plausible deniability and to distance themselves from the inevitable casualties that did come. My question though, what did that actually look like in Russia when hundreds of Russian backed militias died? It was portrayed as this is the life they've chosen. This is the business they've chosen. They knew the risks. They took the job. It may be regrettable for the mothers and the families, but it was not seen as something where Russian honor had to be avenged if they had been with the patch and regular members that pressure might have been greater. That has been an important part when we see kind of the Wagner group, but with others is the public perception is dangerous work, heroic perhaps, but that's the profession that they've chosen and they knew the risks going in. So that's one reason we've seen now in Ukraine, the shift now towards moving back towards militias and mercenaries as opposed to certainly to conscripts as a basis for moving forward. Because there is, and by the way, we see that in the U.S. as well. We don't treat the deaths of contractors as the same level as members of the volunteer force, and I think the Russians internalize that. Can I ask a follow up? Could come over here first and then stay right there, please, thank you. Okay, go ahead. First of all, excuse my English and my mother's language, or excuse my English if it's wrong or anything. With the fall of the USSR, we've seen the fall also of the Warsaw Pact, and on the other side, NATO continued existing. Not only did it continue existing, but it kept expanding as the EU. So my question is, do you feel like we failed to understand a Russian perception of NATO as a threat, or as kind of a failed to understand their vital territory that they have to preserve, or that NATO is just for them not necessary for the defense or the international order? Yeah, I can take a stab at that. It's a long, complicated answer, so I'll be quick, right? I don't, I mean, we could talk for a long time. I think that the problem that we have is that from the Western perspective, NATO has written into the treaty this concept of an open door, which says European countries, if you want to join and you meet this criteria, this is a possibility, and to say that, oh, European countries, you can do that unless somebody else vetoes your sovereign decision, is sort of saying not everybody is sovereign, and that's against Western sort of, I think, value system, and so there's that from the one side. I think also from the Western perspective, we view NATO as a defensive alliance, and it's not at all designed or intending to attack Russia, and so therefore, there's no problem with enlargement. From the Russian side, however, it's quite different, and I think that part of the problem is, Russians really, really believe, and this may or may not be true because the Americans have denied it and denied it and denied it, but in the end, it doesn't matter if it's true or not, because everybody in Russia believes, it's, yeah, everybody in Russia believes that when Gorbachev agreed that a reunified Germany could remain in NATO, that they were promised NATO would not expand, so whether or not we made that promise and the Americans have sworn up and down that that's not true, it's not true, it's not true, the Russians think it's true, and the fact that they think it's true is that they believe that they have somehow been tricked or they made the mistake to agree about Germany, and therefore they've got very strong suspicions about NATO. The problem is how do you address Russian suspicions without violating the integrity of the principle of having a defensive alliance, right, and so I think that this is where we find ourselves, but certainly from the Russian perspective, this is very problematic, and the Baltic states more than ever, I don't know if you wanted to add. Just briefly, I mean, look, part of the problem with NATO enlargement, problem has been backed up, not a problem, one of the ways it was pitched, it was pitched differently to three different constituencies, so it was pitched to Western Europeans as this is no problem because Russia has either finished as a great power or it won't care. It was pitched to the American taxpayer as all these new members are gonna come in and America will pay less, and the countries coming into NATO said, we know our history, we know that there are cycles of rise and fall in the east and we wanna be on the right side because the line will come back again, and politically squaring that was the issue. By 2002, and this is the road not taken, we had both with NATO and the EU mechanisms for relationship with Russia, the NATO Russia Council, and then the EU wider neighborhood, the four common spaces with Russia. For a variety of reasons, the Russian intransigence in some areas, Europeans and Americans not taking it as seriously as they might have those roads for kind of squaring the circle were lost. I mean, I would argue in 2003, we had opportunities to perhaps move this in a different direction, and partly that had to do with the US decision to go into Iraq, which created rifts in the transatlantic relationship and distracted the US from European security because we said it's done, but again, this is all water under the bridge now, but for those who say this is inexorable because in the first panel, the Meersheimer question came up, which leaving that aside, the idea that this was inexorable from 1991, we could only get to where we are in 2022. No, we had many ways in which this could have handled, and some of it is, and the blame goes around. It's no, Moscow's unwillingness to accept post-imperial status as one and lack of attention in Washington as another, and Western European kind of indifference to some of these issues is a third, in my opinion. I just want to add one tiny thing. I know we're really short on time, and let's not forget that Kosovo, right? So we had the NATO-Russia Council, and then we decided to bomb Serbia without talking to Russia. So Russia's like, who cares about the NATO-Russia Council? I mean, honestly, if you're going to make strategic decisions without discussing it, right? Thank you. Let's come back here. On the Russian militia again, so how does the relationship look like between the Russian military leaders who are commanding the war and the employment of militias like the Wagner group? Well, in Syria, and one reason why the Russian military was willing to let Wagner get whacked the way that they did was that the general staff was really ticked off at some of the things Wagner was doing, and were happy to let the American Air Force teach Wagner a lesson, right? So you have those rivals. What we see today in Ukraine, if these reports are correct, that the rivalry between the FSB and Kadyrov's people, that the employment of the Chechen groups in Ukraine has led to a, and that if we take this report, that elements of the FSB tipped off Zelensky through their contacts in the SBU that a Chechen hit squad was coming for Zelensky and enabled that to be ambushed. Yeah, there is tension, right? Because this also reflects, we had Tom, Tom is the famous author of the clans, but within the security and military services, there are clans, there are rivalries, and they're not all necessarily one big happy family. So, yeah, Wagner and Pudagorshin's people, some people in the military said he's getting too big for his britches and he's trying to take control of some Syrian oil assets. So, no, we're gonna withdraw that protective air cover over him and let him take the 400 guys getting shwacked there in Eastern Syria. I wonder if we could, This is an official military term. We have about a minute left. I wonder if Professor Chandry say if we could get it, if you care to comment on any of those questions or conversations. Thank you, I appreciate that. My perspective is sort of different than the experts on the panel here. I look at things from a human rights point of view and I wonder to what extent the US may again step up and sort of actively, candidly profess to morality within its foreign policy. This is not really responsive to any particular question, but I do think it's relevant. I have been urging that the US once again take the position of defending the defenders, that is those people within countries who are risking death by torture every day for the greater good to defend the rights of others, the rights of strangers. Anna, for what it's worth basis, I predict that President Biden, perhaps quite soon, will in fact reincorporate that into American policy, which is something we haven't really seen since the 70s. On a final note, in regard to Ukraine, there are also many Russian refugees, hundreds of thousands at this point who are fleeing Russia because of the risk they are at. By the way, if you use the word war in relation to Ukraine within Russia, you can get up to a 15 year sentence for calling that nasty little conflict a war. So I would hope that people will also be alert to the impact within Russia of its own aggression against Ukraine. Thank you. Everyone, please join me in thanking our panelists for this wonderful conversation. Thank you all for coming.


Welcome to another episode of Islamabad today on Think Tech Hawaii. I'm your host, Hamza Raffa-do-San. Ramazan Mubarak to everybody in the United States, here in Pakistan, and all across South Asia, as well as across the Middle East, and all across the world, for that matter. And we're hoping that this entire occasion brings out the best in you spiritually, and you're able to reflect on all the good tidings of the world and God's blessings. But when we talk about the tidings of the world, the state of India-Pakistan relations has been in flux for quite some time. The 2024 elections here in Pakistan have just taken place with the new Shabash Sharif-led administration and the cabinet actually taking oath just recently. Many political parties have declined to accept the mandate of this particular government. And obviously, the possibilities of that are from the Pakistan People's Party is now the president of the country. Indo-Pak relations, you know, when we talk about the revocation of Article 370 of India's constitution, which resulted in the annexation of Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, two Indian allegations of Pakistan sponsoring a cross-border terrorism has been in the state of flux as well. Whether or not the relations will improve after the 2024 elections have taken place here in Pakistan, that's exactly what we're going to be discussing today. I have with me a professor and a head of department of the School of Politics and International Relations at Kadyatum University, Dr. Zaffir Nawaz as well. Dr. Zaffir, thank you so much for having, you know, for coming on my show. Thank you very much for the invitation. All right, so let's start off with the results of the 2024 elections. Obviously, you have the Pakistan Muslim League, a Nawaz-led government in power. Do you think that there will be a policy shift from Pakistan or a policy shift from New Delhi with regard to how, you know, bilateral relations would actually move forward, or do you think that the status quo will be maintained? I'm sorry, when the Prime Minister Shivaj Shiv took the oath, we heard that the Prime Minister Moody greeted it. And after that congratulation message, Prime Minister Shivaj also responded. But those exchange of messages were important because it took place after a long interval. But at the same time, there was no indication that both sides were willing to, or are willing to change the, this current status quo, which you very rightly mentioned. Of course, the Pakistan has a new government, but the same coalition. Of course, Pakistan is a party which is not joining the government, but at the same time, it is the part of the coalition and at this time, President Zardari is sitting in the presidency. If we see the President Zardari's mindset or his past politics, he desires to break the ice and he sport the dialogue process between India and Pakistan. Same as against the previous PML and governments Prime Minister Nawashi was used as a Prime Minister and now Shabashi, the PML and governments also tried during their time to improve the relations with India. So if we can focus on this political mindset, which is now part of the government, I think that they desired, they tried to change the status quo, restore the full diplomatic relations and improve the relations. Now, this is the one side that Pakistanis are discussing, but there is a big obstacle. Pakistan has a very clear stance that India has to change its position or make some kind of a gesture on the sea in which it took place on August 5, 2019. My understanding is that Prime Minister Modi is not flexible on it. And recently, if you see, he is now in the election and after the election, of course, you are expecting me to answer in the post-India election as well, which will be completed somewhere in June and then we are anticipating the situation after the June, 2024. But if you see the trend in India for instance, a few days back, they implemented this controversial citizen act. Minorities will be suffering, especially the Muslim minorities. Then we have to wait and see how the election works. But in the last one and a half year, Indian, not Prime Minister Modi, but Indian other cabinet members of the Modi government, they were signaling something as you can say jingoism or this kind of the thing. Keeping in mind that we have to wait and see if Prime Minister Modi is able, or better be able to muster the support of ultra-nationalists, where people in the election by highlighting the threat on the Chinese side, deploying on the Chinese side or threat from the Chinese side, then maybe there's a chance. But my understanding is to muster the vote off in Guptua, they have to target sooner on later Pakistan in the election campaign, which Prime Minister Modi did in 2014, 2019 and a gig. Then certainly this rhetoric, of course, it could be an election rhetoric, but one can be not too optimistic about the breaking of the ice and changing of the status quo in the near future. Okay, yeah, that's a fair enough analysis, but Prime Minister Modi also visited Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Just recently, he said that the revocation of Article 370 was the right gesture or the right policy adopted by India because it could actually result in greater employment prospects. However, the indigenous Kashmiri population rebuffed his entire narrative and said that unless and until a political solution to the entire Kashmir crisis does not materialize, then it's very difficult for Kashmiris to move forward with the Modi government. Now, Modi clearly does not have a lot of appeal in Kashmir. And when we talk about Pakistani domestic electoral politics, then India bashing is not part of Pakistan's election. Yes, the political parties internally, but they don't really necessarily bash India. Shabash Sharif is known to be a more, you could say, yes, he is also pro-establishment and he's also known to be very much receptive towards dialogue with India as well. So do you think that there's going to be a break in the past with regard to how Pakistan views it? Because Modi clearly is not getting a lot of traction, whether it's in the Kashmir electorate or whether it's in the Pakistani election campaigning. But do you think Shabash Sharif will be the first one to extend a friendly hand or a gesture of peace towards India? Or do you think that Modi should be doing it instead? Hamza, you were rightly pointed out when we critically examined the last five general lectures in Pakistan, India bashing did not take place. Even the religious political parties did, especially in Islam, it did not bash India. So it means that political forces in Pakistan realized that India bashing is not worth in the election campaigns and it makes them handicapped. But on the other side, when you look about India's 2014 and 19 elections, you have to not forget Pakistan bashing was very much there. And from 2016, India used the surgical strike or militaristic postures to win the election. In the BJP win the election, in the, you can say, state elections as well as the general election. No, it is an interesting thing which we have to not ignore. Prime Minister Modi is using the natoism or traditionalism when he says centuries of the Hindu exploitation. And on the basis of that, he's making or gaining the vote, targeting the Muslim artificial, targeting the Pakistan. Realizing that it will not serve the India as a state purpose, but for an election that is the bashing is very important. If India stopped, I mean, BJP stopped bashing Pakistan or as you can say, selling the victimhood narrative, they failed to get the Hindutva vote or establish the Hindu identity. This is it. But in the case of Pakistan, we have moved ahead in this context. Now, here is the question is that whether in the coming days, Prime Minister Modi, as you referred, acceptability in Kashmiri. Prime Minister Modi or BJP government lost acceptability in the Kashmir because in the Kashmian occupied Kashmir, there are two groups. One was considered pro-independent, pro-Plevisite, pro-Pakistan. Right. And there was an important group like Mahbubah, Mufti, Abdullah, Abdullah, this group, there was pro daily group. Kashmiri leadership pro daily. Right. But since that 2019 August 5, this pro daily group had already denounced their UK's allegiance towards the daily. They are simply saying that daily lost them. So it means that there's no pro daily group now. They all are united on Kashmiri's right. In this context, I think of course in the last five years, Kashmir is, or even before, since Prime Minister Modi came into power, Kashmir is facing or entire Kashmir is in a curfew kind of a position. And terrorism is there or state, what you call it, high-handedness is there. But I think that they can manage it. Demographic can be changed. The unrest will continue in the occupied Kashmir. And India is so big. And international community as a lesser, you can say a third for the Kashmiri's sufferings. We have seen the international community or in a real policy, all these words, human rights, or you can say these kind of things lost their significance. Why? Because see in Gaza what is happening, see what is happening in Kashmir. So international community pressure is very less on the India and Modi will continue. Now, here is my point. If Modi will continue with his current Kashmir policy, Kashmiri's will continue with their resistors, violent resistors as well as political resistors. And Delhi is lacking the pro-Kashmiri lobby or pro-Deli lobby. Certainly the current situation will continue to whom they blame. Easiest ways to blame Pakistan and they will continue to blaming it. Because believing Pakistan, it also serves the Hindutva purpose, narrative of victim. So it's such a situation, even if Prime Minister Nawaz Shabashiv desires and then desires. Oh, and Pakistan is looking for breaking the ice and moving ahead. Even if it desires, is there willingness in Delhi or will the generally trend indicates Prime Minister Modi will be again a third-type Prime Minister of India? Will Prime Minister Modi prepare or able to shake head? Don't forget, after 2014, he added three attempts, shaking hand with the Prime Minister, former Prime Minister Shabashiv, but you have to miss. He take one step forward, two step backward. So even if we say, send a gesture after his reelection that he wanted to move ahead, break the state to school and improve the relation, nuclear arms states cannot live in a deadlock, that will be a gesture. My fear is, immediately after that we will take two step back. That is the trend which we have noticed with the Prime Minister Modi. So I'm not very much optimistic. Of course, we desire in Islamabad. I mean, we mean Pakistani establishment, Pakistani politician, Pakistani academia, that there's need to break the ice and move ahead with India. Right, absolutely. Let's come to the 2024 Indian elections now. I mean, Modi enjoys the immense amount of popularity within India, but we've seen the results of state-level elections where the BJP is actually lost. We've seen the election results in Karnataka and there has been a lot of resistance to the Modi rule from farmer protests in Punjab as well. And from the predominantly Sikh community. And that has resulted in, you could say, the galvanization of the Halestan movement in Canada, as well as in different parts of the Western world as well. So Modi clearly has policy challenges as well. Faced with Pakistan would ensure that India's insecurity would actually be addressed. Now, just to be, you know, I don't endorse this entire narrative, but India says that Pakistan also sponsors terrorism, which results in, you know, dialogues and CBMs and you could say track two level, you could say negotiations being compromised. Now, when we look at what will happen in the Indian electoral landscape after April or June 2024, do you think that A, number one, the Modi regime will be challenged by the Congress party or if Modi is to stay in power, does that mean that any sort of, you could say confidence building measures with Pakistan would be, you know, very illusive? I think that the campaign of the Sikhs or protestors Sikhs will serve the Modi, Modi's Hindutva narrative. And that's what is required. That's why it's not settling it. Second is 80% Hindus and Hindutva forces are going to support him. Is the Congress or the Collegiate party or the 26th party's collision with the abbreviation of India? India, yeah. Yes, in some states there was, but India is too big. And a few states results which were not in favor of a BJP, they may create that in those states maybe Modi lose, but not in the entire India. So the entire trend is that he will be winning at the big business. The entire big business in India is in favor of the move. So whether we like him or not, Narendra Modi, economic policy, Narendra Modi's foreign policy, Narendra Modi's what you call it naturalistic policy, they are successful in Indian perspective and he has a voteback and definitely he will be winning. Now here is the point that after victory, what he will do. Some people think that he maybe it will be last year and he will be looking for a Nobel Peace Prize to resolving the Kashmir Corona dispute, but to say, I think wishful thinking. The entire Prime Minister Modi's successor like Amit Shah or other, they are hardcore, you can say BJP or Indutva, I have sort of thing. Secondly, by establishing good relations with Pakistan, what they will gain? They will be, they have to compromise on their narrative, exploitation narrative, or taking the negative narrative. They are not willing because if you take anything or flexible position on Kashmir or change his view, it will not serve as Indutva policy. So realistically speaking, I think there is no attraction for the Prime Minister Modi for the time being to establish a good relations with Pakistan. And in the international arena, he has a better position and in the international arena, Pakistan is viewed as a political instable state. Of course, our establishment of this new government, we aspire that the things will move on the better, move towards better situation, but we are still in the government that has just started working. So Pakistan has to make itself attractive, keeping in mind we cannot, even if we are attractive for Modi as a politician, it definitely not compromise on his domestic costuance. Right. So let's come to the point that you just alluded to, just about a few seconds ago with regard to Pakistan's profile internationally. There'd be those who would argue that if Pakistan does economically prosper, GDP growth rates increase, human development indexes, actually many of these indicators, whether it's gender empowerment or the state of welfare in the country, that actually improves as well. That could result in some sort of, you could say, fold peace with India with economic cooperation taking place, even though many of the political disputes remain unresolved. Do you agree with that notion that if Pakistan is economically prosperous or manages to put its own house in order, then you could have trading ties with India, but you could also have fold peace where political issues remain unresolved? I think that it's a too, you can say optimistic observation. Okay. Pakistan had historically economic good times. And India at that time, early 90s, better. But still the relations were having ups and downs. Pakistan's economic stability or a political stability, definitely improve the image of the state and make the state more attractive for direct, foreign direct investment of these kind of the case. The problem with India is not economic, Pakistan is a big economic market for India or India is a big economic market for Pakistan, we both know each other. But the problem is India's strategic narrative and India's South Asian viewpoint. The problem is the United States endorsing India since 2009 as a net security provider in the Indian Ocean. So where India looks itself as a successor of British Raj or the things in the South Asia, it's a great power and Pakistan is not willing to compromise or its sovereign state. So these are the, what you call it, constructs of the region and those constructs always create the huddles. India is a big power, major power, but not too big that it can snub Pakistan or rub its nose in Pakistan. It's equally a strong military power, but not in a position to defeat India. So in this kind of a balance or strategic imbalance or a balance, definitely India desires that we can accept. So economics is overruled by the or the strategic issues taken ahead, prioritized and economic is secondary. So even if Pakistan become very economically skewed, obviously economic security is going to strengthen your defense, but economic security cannot make you attractive for India. Right, absolutely. Let's come to the possible or the probable or you could say absolutely abstract notion of nuclear weapons usage. Obviously, Pakistan and India being two nuclear powers, non-signatories to the NPT, you've had a limited war actually taking place in Kargil. You've had fears of a nuclear escalation. Obviously you've written a book on this as well. Don't tell me about the possibility of India and Pakistan actually moving towards nuclear escalation because this is a narrative which is very popular in the United States. Obviously I consider it personally to be an alarmist narrative. It's not as if two countries would decide to actually use nuclear weapons for the sake of it. And various theorists such as Scott Sagan have actually said that your nuclear weapons also has deterrence value as well, where two countries would not necessarily be inclined towards attacking each other and it's war for deterrence value. But given the Hindu nationalistic tendencies in India and you could say, well, not necessarily a pro-India government or a more friendly government of Pakistan, if there is a skirmish, for example, a Pulwama attack which actually takes place or cross-border terrorism which takes place, I'm not talking about Pakistan towards India. It could also be Baloch nationalists and Balochistan, which are also sponsored by India. In such a scenario, it does take place and given that Modi has a second term, do you think that nuclear escalation is a possibility? It depends on the world trend. The trend is more nuclear weapons. Whether you'll see the American nuclear poster review 2022, Russian policy, Chinese policy, or other policies. Indian policy, yeah. Yeah, it pops. Now here scenario which you built, it's correct, Pakistan and India are the only nuclear arms states which had it here compared in 2019. And one state lost its nuclear crops and its pallet was arrested. Though India is a conventionally bigger number, but failed to have, but it lost its confidence in its conventional defense and Prime Minister Modi started signaling of the nuclear, use of nuclear. India went for deployment of the naval asset, including Arihan submarine, were immediately deployed in the sea. So that deployment and then the way the nuclear rhetoric and then Pakistan's limitation indicates that a limited war, which India thinks that it can use it for pursuit of its objectives, could not remain a limited war. Americans or the others, alarmists, you can say a position is very much justified. If you see, India tested on 11th March, a Agni five with the MoV technology. Now MoVing Agni five make Agni five a one missile with the five to 10 warheads. And those warheads can be used against Pakistan. So what it is it? So they are with the one delivery vehicle that are using warheads. Pakistan had already tested the MoV technology or MoV missile Ababil and retested recently, first time in January, 2017. In case of Pakistan, I wrote a recently a column in the Arab news of this and number of the sense that you were saying in 2017 that the MoV will be going to bring stability. The reason was that I was keeping in mind India's missile defense system. So MoV technology is to defeat the missile defense system. So it was restoring the balance of terror. Now here when India comes, India is coupling the MoV technology and BMD together, bringing to the armed forces naturally, what is the net result? The journal analysis says that the MoV technology increases or make crisis stability move for giant. This is a consensus of the international scholars and it indicates. Secondly, the way India and Pakistan are investing in the delivery vehicles and within the delivery vehicles investing in the MoV, opposite now here, I'm not blaming India or Pakistan either. What is the net outcome? Armed race always leads to the escalation of the crisis or at least towards the escalation of the conflict, having some kind of conflict, having a probability of uses of the nuclear weapon. So in limited world, I do agree with you. Pakistani scholars or Pakistani policymakers confidently say that India and Pakistan know each other. We had a five, you can say conflict in the aftermath of the nuclear test, Gargle, 2001, 2002, 2000, Mumbai, then we have a, you can say surgical strike, so-called claim by India in 2016 and ultimately, but point here is in all these four, India's compel strategy work, but in the same type, Pakistan's deterrence also work. Right. Now, in the case of this Pulwama situation, as you can say, got out of the air and India's were not thinking about it. India's were not expecting that there's this undercut, they knew this was a surgical strike. It was not a surgical strike, they only violated the international board. They dropped the payload, no killings in the Pakistani side, there was nothing, but their propaganda was so high that at Barakot, they destroyed Syria at something and as a result, Pakistan retaliated. But Pakistan retaliated, India also retaliated and lost the aircraft. So it was a dogfight, or you can say here combat in a correct manner, once between the two nuclear states. What is the next step? Next step is, you cannot rule out false flag. Indians are always saying the terrorism is falsehood, but of course, what is happening in Balochistan and what is happening in KPK sport to TTP is according to Pakistan's special environment Afghanistan is said of through the Afghan groups, these TTP, Baloch, Buahubut, these people are provided financial sport, material sport by India. Of course, Pakistan is not making a terrorism as an excuse and attacking on India, but India could make it. India did a false flag for Obama for the sake of elections, India could do it. So by this way, we cannot ignore because initiative will be on India's side, unfortunately, since last two decades, Indian strategic funders thinks that India has the potential to start a limited war and control a limited war, but they fail to realize every war has its own dynamical and those dynamical forces are having their own trends. So if India started limited war or even if Pakistan started limited war, it is no one can guarantee it will remain limited. So when I say no one can guarantee, it means that we will be on a slippery road ending up into exchanges of the nuclear weapon. So that is maybe alarmist, but it is tragically speaking and practically realizing what cannot ignore. One of the final questions that I do have is that there are certain peace platforms and I say peace platforms in quotation marks is because when you look at Aman Ki Asha, for example, which means this desire for peace or between the Jung group at the times of India, and then you also have diasporic relations between Indians and Pakistanis. We know for a fact that India and the Pakistanis, whenever they live abroad, whether it's in the United States or whether it's in the UK, Australia, for that matter, they tend to have very good relations with one another. Do you think that such you could say people to people contacts can actually result in any sort of de-escalation or do you think that initiatives such as this desire for peace or Aman Ki Asha are more elitist and they do not necessarily represent policy making on the ground, whether it's at the governmental level or whether it's based on populism with the rise of Hindu nationalism in India or certain elements of Pakistan. Do you think that such peace initiatives are more idealistic, to be honest? I think that it's correct to say initiatives are idealistic, but you know that without idealism, we cannot change the status. So everyone is supportive in Pakistan. You and I also support the peace initiatives at least one step forward. At least a baby step can lead us to a situation where we will be not exposed to nuclear armaged. So that's why I do recommend all these forces, all these groups, all the CBFs groups that restarted. I understand they are frustrated. People start a peace process, we reach to a U.S. gold poster before kicking the ball in the goal we come back. So it's a pendulum. But at the same time, these groups efforts or these you can see initiatives played their role, key role in avoiding the crisis escalation of a crisis or establishing crisis stability in the region. And today we need it more. My understanding is India, Pakistan are nuclear arms state. It's the responsibility of Delhi and Islamabad being a nuclear arms state that they shall talk with each other. And there's a responsibility of the U.S. who in every field of both states that they try to convince the government or they have to initiate back door. Because if you are both states are having a mobbed missiles, if they're deployed there, we will be more vulnerable. Our geostrategic location, our geographical integrity is such as that in deadlock, we cannot afford. So of course, these groups have their say, but practically if somebody thinks that these groups have no tangible, no, they have a tangible impact. But the way we expect that may be a degree of impact could be lesser. I have a lot of hope in the track to back door diplomacy or these human rights or people to people context. Of course, every time these contacts are needed to mature and fit, but still we get something. Out of that, we get non attack on each other's nuclear installations. Out of it, we get a prior notification of ballistic missiles, long-range ballistic missile test. What is the need of the R? We need it include the side, you can say, cruise missiles in prior notification. We need in it to negotiate because we are heading towards an emerging technology or devastating emerging technology era. There both states cannot afford this kind of a deadlock that we are not willing to. At least this is not means compromising on each other's principle statuses, but negotiations, dialogue is required for avoiding the conflict escalation. HOD of the School of Politics and International Relations of the Kite-Alderman University and the professor as well, Dr. Zaffron Nawaz as well. Thank you so much for joining me on the tour. Thank you, Hamza, for the duty. That's all that we have from Slaba today on Think Tech Hawaii. Do provide us with your feedback and comments. We can all pray that Indo-Pac relations actually, you know, move in the right trajectory. But for that, both sides, particularly India, needs to demonstrate more, you could say, magnanimity in order for tensions to be diffused. That's all from me, Hamza Rehmet. Take care. If you liked this show, why don't you give us a like or subscribe to our channel? Thanks so much.


Hello. Myself, Dr. Mohammad Mahmud Rahman and my topic is comparison between digital computer radiography and high-resonational computer tomography in industrial lung diseases. Introduction. Industrial lung diseases are a diverse group of diseases which affect the lung industrial system and share similar clinical radiological manifestations. They are a continuous group of disorder of the lower respiratory tract. They are characterized by both acute and chronic inflammation, generally reversible and reoccurred in the process of fibrosis in the alveolar wall. The term industrial cell can be misleading as most of the conditions also affect the areas of the spaces and even the blood vessels, but it is predominant and primary involvement of the industrial cell that characterizes them. The natural history of several lung diseases are characterized by slow and progressive destruction of alveolar capillary function with anatomical destruction, peripheral aerogenesis with often respiratory failure and death. So, the importance of HRCT and other investigation in aiding for lung diseases is important. The exact prevalence and incidence of LEDs are unknown. The study shows the prevalence of 81 in one leg for men and with 67 in one leg for women. In 1994, Hammond reached and described four cases of rapidly progressive phytal diffused industrial cell fibrosis. They adopted a diffused industrial fibrosis with mononuclear cell infestation and was from Hammondry's syndrome. The spectrum of histopathology finding was much broader and included intra-alveolar industrial and anaerobic changes. The aim is an objective. Generally, to find the different varieties of radiography pattern in the ILDs as seen in digital computed chest radiography with HRCT thorax coalescence. Specific objective to describe the different radiography pattern evident in both digital radiography and HRCT. And the coalescent findings of DR with HRCT. Metalsome method studies and descriptive cross-sectional study shedding timelines. The study was conducted in the Department of Radiological Diagnosis, in the time frame of 18 months of the date of acceptance of synapses. Totally study period of 18 months with study population. The patients of ILD was referred to the radiographies for evaluation of the Department of Radiological Diagnosis and Baccalaureate Surveillance in the Middle College and Hospital. Each of them submitted to both DR and HRCT thorax. This is the sample formula. Inclusion criteria, clinically suspected patients of ILD referred to the radiology department for X-ray and CT scan of thorax. Already diagnosed cases of such interstitial lung disease which need to follow up in radiological investigation were referred to radiology department. And exclusion criteria presents presented to radiology department who were unfit for study. And state tools. Medical records for bed head tickets, OPD and other laboratory investigations. We found that 57.5% male patients had ILD and 42.5%. And in this sample we can see that about 37.5% were from 50 to 59 age group and 35% were from 60 to 69 age group. If you look into the occupation, we will find 30% among housewife and 25% among the farmers in the incidence of the disease. Comparative study radical opacity, 60% which is in DR and that is HACT 92.5%. And honey combing 6%, 15% in DR and 47.5% in HRCT. Traxonal bronchitis is 52.5% in HRCT. Now discussion. The main observation of our study that higher number of abnormal findings were detected by HACT to DR even when both modelluses are able to detect the HRCT findings in HRCT. So the influence can be drawn from this study is that HRCT is much more sensitive and effective than just radiography for distance of intestine lung diseases. Therefore HRCT seem to be essential for the evolution of case of industrial lung disease. Now these are the references. Four minutes.


Dear students, in this module, we are going to discuss the population growth. Question arises that how should we treat our population, particularly the population growth? Is population a bomb or a potential resource? Population growth refers to the increasing in number of individuals within a population over time. In Pakistan, the population growth has a major concern for policy makers as the country has one of the highest population growth rates in the world. As the population increases, the concern for the population also increases. However, in the recent past, the growth of the population has been changing. In the opinion of some demographers, the population is a potential resource. According to the classical theories, the population will be a burden for you or your existing resources. We can take examples of many other countries, especially Western countries where due to sudden population changes, their population dynamics have created a lot of disruption. For example, a population is like an ideal pyramid in which a larger chunk of population is of a young population and a productive population. A small part of the population is dependent on the population. Due to the intervention of certain population policies, when the population growth came to a decline, in some countries, the chunk of the dependent population has increased and the productive population has decreased. That is why such countries had to take support of immigration policies. Other countries had to import the young or productive population. It is very interesting to understand that this population growth is essential for analyzing the social and economic trends as well as for planning infrastructure and public services. The study of population growth requires a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating perspectives from sociology, demography and economics. So to understand the population growth, what we need to do is we need to analyze its historical trends and patterns and at the same time, we need to see it from different theoretical perspectives. For us, this can be a potential resource because the young population in Pakistan has a large chunk of population. If we can use this youth as an adequately resource, then it can be a potential resource. Otherwise, this can be a potential population bomb for us because if we cannot develop policies that can engage our youth productively, then obviously, this youth can be damaging in various aspects of the lack of taxical behavior or in different crimes. At the same time, we need to see how our older population can develop policies so that our dependent population can also have better opportunities for the older population. At the same time, we need to see how new populations and resources and infrastructure are also developed in the same way. So to understand the overall population growth from the policy standpoint is very important. So effective population growth management strategies may include family planning, initiatives, immigration policies and economic development programs. And accurate data collection and analysis are necessary for effective policymaking related to this population growth.