Thank you everybody for scarfing down
your pizza promptly and returning. So um the next item in our program is our round
table on the global impact of the Russia Ukraine war and we're very excited to present um a panel
of expert Scholars on um Ukraine and the also impacts of the Russia Ukraine war on different
regions. So we are here representing perspectives from um scholarship on Eastern Europe as well as
East Asia and the Middle East. And I am going to quickly introduce our distinguished
guests. First
in alphabetical order is Daniel Brumberg who is an associate professor and director of democracy
and government studies or sorry governance studies at Georgetown University. He's also the senior
advisor to and co-founder of the democracy and governance M.A program at Georgetown University.
He's also a non-resident senior fellow at the Washington dc-based Arab Center. Previously
to that he was a special advisor at the United States Institute of Peace. He's also a visiting
pro
fessor of Kuwait/Gulf studies at Sciences Po in Paris. Prior to coming to Georgetown University
he was a visiting professor in the department of political science at Emory University, a visiting
fellow in the Middle East program in the Jimmy Carter Center, and a lecturer at the University
of Chicago's social science master's program. He tells me that he had an office not too far
from where we are today. Dan earned his PhD at UChicago in 1991 has published seminal articles
on dynamics of pol
itical social and economic change in the Middle East and The Wider Muslim
World. His work has appeared in leading print and online journals including the Journal
of Democracy foreignpolicy.com, Responsible Statecraft and theatlantic.com. His books include
Reinventing Khomeini the Struggle for Reform in Iran by University of Chicago press; Identity
and Reform in the Muslim World, Challenges for U.S Engagement, co-edited with Dina Shahata;
and most recently Power and Political Change in Iran
co-edited with Faride Farhi and published
by Indiana University press. Brumberg has served as a consultant to the U.S Department of State
and the United States Agency for International Development or USAID focusing on human rights,
security sector reform, and governance issues in the Arab world Turkey and Iran. He has lived
or conducted field research in France, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Kuwait, and Indonesia
and in addition to all this work on the Middle East he is also taught cours
es on the problem
of polarization in the United States and other countries and is the co-creator of the “in your
shoes” project, a Georgetown University initiative that uses performance and theater techniques
to encourage college students to reach across ideological social and identity Divides. He speaks
French Arabic and Hebrew and lives in Washington DC with his wife Lori and their two cats Jasper
and BC. Yeah you got the whole thing. I know yeah you got a lot of titles! Most importantly
their
son Gabriel is a freshman this year at U Chicago. I'm gonna move on next in the order is Eugene
Raikhel who is here on our Zoom screen. Eugene Raikhel is a associate professor Department
of comparative human development at the University of Chicago and he's also the director of the
University of Chicago East European and Russian Eurasion – Center for East European Russian
Eurasian studies. He is a cultural and medical Anthropologist with interests encompassing
the anthropology of Sci
ence, biomedicine and Psychiatry, addiction and its treatment,
suggestion and healing, and post-socialist transformations in Eurasia. He's particularly
concerned with the circulation of new forms of knowledge and clinical intervention produced by
biomedicine, Neuroscience, and Psychiatry.His work follows therapeutic Technologies as they
move from bench to bedside and from one cultural to institution or institutional setting to
another, examining how they intersect with the lives of practiti
oners and Patients. His
book, “Governing Habits, Treating Alcoholism in the Post-Soviet Clinic,” was published by
Cornell University press in the fall of 2016. I am going to move on to Suzanne Wengle. Suzanne
is the NR Dreux – Am I pronouncing that right? – associate professor of political science at
the University of Notre Dame. Her research examines Eurasian Agriculture and Food Systems and
other aspects of the post-Soviet transformation, including the creation of energy markets,
the eff
ects of sanctions, welfare reforms, and the politics of expertise. Her recent book
“Black Earth White Bread” is an interdisciplinary history of the Soviet and Russian Agriculture and
food systems that documents interactions between political projects, technological improvements,
and quotidian practices. And last but not least we have Elizabeth wishnick also on our Zoom screen
here uh Elizabeth Wishnick is a senior research scientist in the China and indo-Pacific Security
Affairs Division at
the center for Naval analses, on leave from her position as professor of
political science at Montclair State University. Dr. Wishnick is also a senior research scholar at
the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University, and an affiliate researcher at the
center for Arctic resilience in the Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management at
the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dr Wishnick has dual Regional expertise on China and Russia
and is an expert on Chinese foreig
n policy, sino-russian relations, Asian Security – including
Taiwan and Russia – and architect geopolitics. Her book project “China's Risk; Oil Water Food and
Regional Security,” forthcoming from Columbia University press addresses security consequences
of energy, water and food risks in China for its Eurasian neighbors, a topic she explores in a
related policy blog www.chinareesources.com that link is available on our website. She received a
PhD in political science from Columbia Universit
y an M.A in Russian and East European studies from
Yale University and a BA from Barnard College. She speaks Chinese Russian and French and
recently spent six months in Vladivostok Russia, Shanghai China, and Almaty Kazakhstan
as part of a Fulbright Global scholar award. Please welcome our distinguished panelists and I'm gonna pass it to Eugene to begin.
Eugene take it away. Sure um thanks so much uh I'm uh sorry I can't be there with you all. I'm
quarantining home with uh the covid unfortu
nately. um I'm going to be moderating our panel today
and the format is that each of our panelists will give a brief introduction we will have a
few hopefully questions among the panelists, uh and then we will try to open it up as soon as
possible to uh questions for uh from the audience. So why don't we just move in alphabetical
order and Daniel Brumberg can start us off. Okay well thank you very much and thanks for
hosting me. My wife was supposed to attend as well but she got covid and t
hings changed up a
little bit. I just want to thank everybody for, Krishna in particular, for the warm welcome and
putting me up here. And as it was already said um this is uh this is the secondary
reason for me being in Chicago um uh and that is our son just started
here this year. And uh so it is a bit of a tradition. I met my wife here, I was a
student in the political science department uh for too long – classic UChicago phenomenon –
uh and um I also taught here my last year in the soc
ial science program with Suzanne Rudolph the
late, great Suzanne Rudolph. I also worked with Marvin Zonis. Some of you may have known who
Marvin was uh very closely almost a surrogate father. This is a particularly important subject
to me from a personal perspective. My father uh escaped uh Warsaw in the day of the Nazi invasion
with his parents and were nearly killed and went to Lithuania and lived in Lithuania for uh six
months under Soviet occupation. The Soviets were busy trying to arre
st my grandfather who they
certainly would have shot in the nanosecond had they caught him. But they made it to Japan uh
as a result of getting a a visa from a Japanese Diplomat named Sugihara who you may have heard
of, and came to the United States. And my father made a career as a sovietologist and his name was
Abraham Brumberg and he edited a journal called problems of Communism. I imagined some of our
colleagues should have encountered him or his work at some point. So I grew up in a so
vietological
world and that was part of the world I knew when I was a student here but I went towards the Middle
East Arena over time. So this is an opportunity to speak a little bit about uh how these two uh
Arenas the Ukraine Eastern European Arena and the Middle East Arena intersect and do so in ways that
are unfortunately not terribly encouraging and increasingly problematic. There's nothing, there's
no Silver Lining here in terms of what I'm going to talk about. And it's a very complex
subject
so I'm going to just enumerate a few key ideas (sorry? okay) I'm going to enumerate a few key ideas because I
think that the the uh the idea here is to have a conversation. First of all very briefly because
you know we're all we're all teachers and I come from a family of teachers. My twin sister is a
teacher who just retired from the public education system in Providence and her husband's a teacher
at Wheaton College. My late mother was a teacher. I just I grew up in a teacher Wor
ld which I really
really uh uh uh I think I understand in many ways and I really appreciate. But I do want to say
a couple quick things in terms of teaching this subject and one is that I think it's important
to recognize that uh we we – As much as possible, particularly in the older grades in the high
school Arena and we make it clear to our students that when we're trying to sort of ferret out the
political significance of the intersection of the Middle East with Eastern Europe – whatever
the
international arena is – that we make it clear that the point of view the analytical framework
that we use really influences the kinds of questions we ask and the answers we come up with.
Now this sounds slightly postmodern perhaps to you but I do think that there's a vigorous debate
about the implications of the Ukraine war and if you follow the work of John mearsheimer you know
that John's uh hyper-rationalist perspective has led him to conclusions which are very different
from from
those uh of other Scholars. So I do think we need to sort of make that clear as much
as we can to our students the three paradigms that really seem to be influencing the way we
understand these interactions. One is a kind of neoconservative global authoritarian Paradigm
which suggests that there's a global war between democracy and autocracy and this is how to best
understand these the this these these dynamics. There is a geostrategic rationalist perspective
focusing on state and security
, and there is a kind of foreign policy perspective. These are
the sort of three paradigms that are out there. I have to say from my perspective while I
don't agree with much of the conclusions that John Mearsheimer has uh drawn that I think a
geostrategic state oriented approach is the most useful way to understand how and what what ways
uh the Middle East interacts with uh the uh the Ukraine situation. But more importantly I do
think we have to give our students some sort of awareness tha
t that that those sort of
perspectives offer different very different conclusions. That's the first point. The second
point I'd like to make here is that um if we the in the context of a globalized world in which
there's no longer a single uh superpower and we have a multi-polar world um that particular. The
nature that's geostrategic uh world has really uh transformed the capacity of the United States
to uh influence events especially in the Middle East. And in that regard uh the United St
ates is
no longer really quite the power it used to be and Russia is in some sense the pivotal part of the
story because Russia, uh apart from having very clear interests in Syria (the Syrian regime would
not exist had it not been for what the Kremlin did to rescue Assad) uh Russia has relations with all
the Middle East actors and the United States does. And that is a crucial point. It provides Russia
with the kind of leverage uh that uh that the United States does not have A part of the st
ory
that we've been dealing with here is the reticence of Israel to support the Ukraine. Despite the
fact that it's a Jewish State. Despite the fact that 130,000 Jews in Ukraine. Despite the
fact that there are a million Jews in Russia. From a strategic point of view Israel has many
concerns about what would happen in its backyard or semi-backyard I.E Syria if it supported uh the
Ukraine. So Russia has this extraordinary sort of leverage. And Russia figured out a series of
relationships pr
ior to the Ukraine war with Iran, Turkey, and Israel that really set the boundaries
of the readiness of any of those players to exercise influence in ways that might um rub let's
say the Russians the wrong way. So Iran, Turkey and Israel – those are the three key players in
this story, I think in terms of uh the Middle East and how it was organized and how Russia really set
understandings with all those players. Turkey in in terms of its its evolvement in in Syria. Iran
in terms of how much
it could expand its influence in Syria. And Israel to the extent to which Israel
could use its Armed Forces against Iran without jeopardizing Russia's interests. So those that
was a very complex set of factors that one has to exist understand. And that all existed before
the Ukraine war. The Ukraine war steps into this picture by really altering all the calculations
of the key players. And the fundamental part of this story that I think we have to recognize is
not only that – excuse me – w
ell not only that that none of the players really would. I think
all the players, including China by the way, were quite surprised by what Russia did in terms
of intervening and and invading Ukraine. But when it did that uh that was followed of course by
the expanding relationship between Russia and Iran. And Iran's alliance with the Ukraine and
Russia has really turned the tables on all those relationships I Mentioned. We can talk more about
– I'm not going to get – I have all kinds of not
es here (which unfortunately are my handwriting
so I can't read any of them) but but uh but um that relationship. Well Iran has provided
perhaps three thousand drones to the Russians. Deadly drones. And the a lot of the worst
damage to civilians is a result of Russian drones. But that expanding footprint of Russia
of Iran in terms of Ukraine has really altered the perspectives of uh all the Players. (and how
much time do I have I mean I just want to make sure I you know there's a couple mor
e minutes is
that basically it I just want to get a sense of I got a couple of minutes um) So here here's
the here's the lay of the land um. There was an accommodation between Iran and uh between Russia
and Israel about how much force Israel could use in Syria. There was a similar accommodation
with Turkey and a similar accommodation with Iran. Now that Iran and Russia are really
locked in an expanding alliance in Ukraine um the Israelis are in a real tight bond. Because
they feel on the o
ne hand that if they uh support uh the Ukraine government militarily, the Russians
will make them pay a very high price in Syria –and they're probably correct. At the same time
the Israelis are very well aware that that Iran expanding influence in Ukraine has real
repercussions for Israel and its security. So that's a dilemma and thus far the Israelis
don't know how to solve it because they really don't want to rub the Russians the wrong way but
they see Iran's missiles and it's it's drones
going into Ukraine and it has a geostrategic
implications for but the security of of the Middle East. The Iranians are expanding their footprint
in Syria because they now see Russia occupied in Ukraine and they feel they can push the boundaries
of what was permissible to Russia beforehand so in Southwest Syria they're expanding their influence.
And uh the uh the Turks well the Turkish government uh is might invade the Northeast with
the goal of basically destroying the Kurdish forces there
– the United States would be very
unhappy but Russia and the government in Damascus wouldn't be unhappy. So the short end of the story
of this the the the the the summary conclusion is that basically the blowback from the Ukraine uh
war is going to probably make the Middle East and particularly the Iran-Russia-Lebanon- Israel
arena much more unstable because none of the countries feel constrained now. And we saw that
when it when Israel attacked Iranian and Hezbollah um weapons factory out
side Damascus a week
and a half ago. This is something that the Russians wouldn't have permitted not long ago
but they're busy in Ukraine. So the possibility and in the context of no agreement between the
United States and Iran uh on on the JCPOA – the nuclear agreement – uh and the and the escalating
possibility of military confrontation between Iran and the United States – all this means that
the the Ukraine war, apart from its obvious geosstrategic and humanitarian implications, are
goi
ng to sort of feed a period of uncertainty and escalating violence in the region uh that
could make things worse than they already are. So I'm sorry to end on such a bleak note
but I think those are the realities. Thank you great and uh I think we'll have time to come
back um for you to expand on some of those points. surely sure. uh Suzanne uh Wengle go
ahead and uh present yours. Thank you Gene. Thanks to uh uh series for the Invitation.
Thanks to uh Esther and Krishna for organizing and
thanks to you guys all for coming. And
also you know I wanted to start with saying you the kids who are in my classroom are
actually the product of your classrooms so I really appreciate all the teaching uh you
do. And and you know it's an uphill battle as as you know because there's so much information
out there. And um so so we're sort of all in this together to to make American kids into
global citizens. So to just as a as a preface um as Krishna mentioned I study post-Soviet
economies
and I'm interested in a sort of social political uh processes that happen after these
economies uh transition from the planned economy to market economy. So I'm thinking about various
markets – I was thinking about energy markets for a good part of my career, and for the last few
years I've been thinking about agriculture and food systems and global trade and agricultural
commodities. So I'm currently working on a project that looks more uh closely at the role of
Eurasian grain in particula
r. So I'm going to just abuse this opportunity to talk a little bit about
grain right. You know we're very used to worrying about uh oil and gas in this region, right,
energy is big is a big concern. Uh But I think um in the US um uh you know people aren't really
used to worrying about where food is coming from right? There is there sort of enough grain because
the US is a is a huge agricultural uh Powerhouse right. It produced it's obviously self-sufficient
and exports a lot of grain. So t
he general public hasn't really had to worry about where does grain
come from. But but this is actually a luxury that many other countries uh do not have. There's a
lot of populous countries uh in Africa, in Asia and the Middle East that are dependent on food
imports and and grain Imports in particular and. So governments in these countries actually
includes China uh have – governments have been sort of worried about where does grain come from.
And they they're following a global train clos
ely, they follow global food commodity prices. And so
on so. In particular those countries are uh China, Egypt, Turkey, Bangladesh. Those are countries
that are huge importers of Eurasian grain. Turkish TV was the first TV that called me uh right after
the invasion and they were sort of, “so what's going to happen with Ukrainian grain?”
That happened sort of within an hour of the invasion – it was Turkish TV it was not, you know,
NBC and ABC were sort of like coming around to that realizati
on uh way later. So Eurasian grain
is mostly grown in Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan in what is called the Black Earth Belt. So
the Black Earth Belt also known as Chernozem is uh one of the world's most fertile grain
growing regions that counts for about a third of global uh globally traded wheat. Russia
is the world's largest exporter of wheat, accounting for about 20% of global trade. Ukraine
accounts for about five to eight percent of grain and Kazakhstan for a further two to three perc
ent
of grain. And and that's the grain overall um wheat and corn uh they account
for even larger numbers.So I'll just talk a little bit about uh you know
history. And and since this is about the role of the conflict and the global impact I'll talk about
how disruptions to Ukrainian agriculture have have shaped these Global uh grain markets. So I I can't
help not bringing a little bit of history to the uh talk because there's always history there,
as you the history teachers among you I'm s
ure know. So Eurasia was actually a really important
bread basket for Europe in the 19th century. The US and the Russian Empire were competing to feed
the industrial workforce in the 19th century in European cities right. So uh Manchester,
Rotterdam, Paris were were importing a lot of grain because The people were working in factories
uh instead of on farms. And and Russia the Russian Empire was a big uh grain exporter. So after 1917
however after the Russian Revolution Russian wheat export
s declined sharply. And that has a number
of reasons in including you know Revolution Civil War, collectivization, a lot of domestic turmoil
uh meant that Russia wasn't actually producing all that much grain anymore. And this is act as true
for most of the 20th century and in fact you may notice since the 1970s Russia was the Soviet Union
was an importer of American grain. Uh interesting fact of history uh – you know Brezhnev agreed to
import grain because he wanted Soviet citizens to eat m
ore meat but to eat more meat he had to feed
the cows and other livestock. And American farmers were just much more efficient in in producing
feed grades. So um Ukraine um is by far has an incredibly fertile uh climate for agriculture, has
incredibly rich soils um. It also has a very mild and long growing season because it's located more
southern uh than Russia. And it has ample rainfall so it's sort of a combination of sort of magic
factors that make it really really fertile. So um it's ve
ry good for growing wheat but it's even
better for growing corn. Um so the Soviet history of corn growing is really interesting. I will not
go into that because that would be a tangent uh too far Um. But uh you know you I'm sure you
know this corn is an incredibly high demand globally. So Ukraine has shifted to uh producing
more corn. And Ukraine has actually become one of the world's leading corn producers and exporters.
Because Ukraine has seen a huge corn boom in the last 10 to 15 years
it increased between uh I
think 2000 um 2008 sorry I'm not remembering my statistics but I think it's over the last 10
years Ukraine uh increased production tenfolds. It doubled yields and and exports went from 0.05% of
global trade to 14% of global Trades. So Ukraine exports 14% of global corn – that is a lot of
corn for sort of a relatively small country. And not surprisingly agriculture has become a
really important part of Ukrainian the Ukrainian economy uh and also an important part of
its
export. It's the biggest export sector and and it earns important uh foreign currency right
that Ukraine can then use to buy other stuff. Further important bit of information is that
all Ukrainian grain or virtually all – 98% – in addition to all Russian grain and all uh actually
not all Kazakh rain but most of the region's grain is exported via the Black Sea. Kazakhstan actually
supplies some of its Regional neighbors such as Afghanistan and other Central Asian countries
but um Ukrai
ne and Russia export most grain via the Black Sea. This will be important in a minute
when I talk about the Black Sea blockade. So let me talk about – so this is all the picture up to
2021. 2021 was an incredibly successful year for Ukrainian agriculture. And then the war started
right. So we all know that the war has been you know grievous and extremely damaging. In many
ways it's well known that Russia has targeted energy infrastructure, civilian targets, in
addition to military military
targets. Sadly the war has also been really harmful and detrimental
to Ukrainian agriculture. So together with a Ukrainian collaborator uh Vitali Dankovic who's
actually an agricultural and economist and also a farmer and also a dad. And you know given all
these responsibilities uh he's just been really uh a wonderful collaborator and a lot of the sources
I have I have through him right. We do a lot of interviews and and he sort of translates Ukrainian
media sources. And you know channels t
he important information for me. And I do some of the writing.
So the conclusions we're drawing uh is that um the uh the damage to Ukrainian agriculture is
actually quite targeted right. It's not just sort of this collateral accidental damage that also
affects farm. Uh and we we draw this conclusion basically because we we catalog uh what is what
is happening to farms. And there's sort of four types of of damage. One is theft Right. So the
Russian troops actually were stealing machinery, gr
ain, um all kinds of uh expensive assets.
Um there's also very significant disruptions of the growing cycle, there are sort of fires,
um later of harvest and and there was you know mines and fields and so on um that have
made it really hard to plant and harvest. Third type of damage is to damage to
Infrastructure. And I should have mentioned that before I started with my text the all of these
damages have different long and short-term costs. So the damage to infrastructure will take many
y
ears to repair. So that includes uh uh bombings of grain elevators, transport Infrastructure,
grain terminals and ports and so on. You know in this category is actually
also the destruction of livestock um that couldn't be fed uh due to the war. So the
fourth type of damage is inflicted by Russia's Naval blockade of the Black Sea and the Sea of
Azov. Um and because uh Naval (should I rather I'm good okay uh) Because uh as I mentioned uh Ukraine
exports most of its grain via Black Sea this N
aval blockade has been really harmful. And this last
type has sort of currently created the most uh sort of overall damage to Ukrainian farm. So for
the first six months of the War all of Ukraine's ports were actually uh closed. Some of them were
occupied by Russian troops. Mariupol [inaudible] were inaccessible. And then other parts
were just closed because there couldn't be, the ship the ship uh cargo uh was weren't
able to uh uh land and and take off. And so basically what happened is li
terally that
grain piled up in Ukraine. So in the first uh in the spring Ukraine couldn't export uh couldn't
honor the contracts that they had made for the 2021 harvest. And then as sort of uh uh as
they harvested spring wheat. Ukraine has a winter wheat and a spring wheat season. And corn
is harvested in the fall uh but uh but basically um they just couldn't they didn't know what
to do with the grain. It was basically piling up and they were sort of all the storage
facilities were full an
d it was getting more expensive to store. So it was really a a
horrible situation. So what happened is then uh the prices for grain in Ukraine plummeted
right because there was basically a glut. There were you know – Traders didn't want to buy
uh. There were limited domestic users of green, whereas farmers had a ton of grain on their hands
right. But what happened internationally was was the opposite right. So global food commodity
prices had already been high before the war because of Covi
d related stuff. And then all this
grain from Ukraine didn't reach Global markets right. So food commodity prices were quite high
and there was a lot of concern about damage this would do to the poor countries that relied on
Eurasian grain. And so for the first six months uh Global Food commodity prices were actually
rising. An important turning point was what's called the Black Sea grain initiative that you
may know better as the grain corridor. So Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, and the UN um ca
me to an
agreement on a partial easing of the naval blockade. So basically Russia allowed a bunch of
Ukrainian ships to export grain. And the agreement was originally reached in Istanbul with turkey
brokering the agreement on July 22nd. And what happened immediately after is that global grain
prices tapered off right. There was sort of a sigh of relief. Importantly uh this agreement that was
reached in July was only valid for 120 days which gets you to early November. So what Russia does
o
n October 31 – I remember this because it was on Halloween and because we had prepared a a press
thing for uh October uh sorry for November 22 but Russia pulled out a couple weeks early and we
weren't prepared but anyways – it was onHalloween, Russia pulled out of the agreement and
threatened to not uh renew the agreement. And immediately the Chicago Board of Trade uh
food food commodity Futures went up and so global markets were really scared what would happen. uh
uh Russia was able sort o
f to get assurances. So Russia has been using the the grain Corridor to
extract concessions in the sanctions regime from the West right. And so a sort of intense period
of of diplomacy followed and then uh the agreement was renewed again. So the grain Corridor uh was
re-established, again however only for another 150 uh 120 days. It's actually going to run out
again on February 18, so we'll see what happens. So the grain initiative is sort of a very
is a useful uh agreement but it's very uh
tenuous it's very limited. Global food
commodity prices uh taper off as long as there is an agreement and Ukraine is able
to export grain and earn foreign currency uh uh in return. So I'll finish here let me
just see what my conclusions are right. So conclusions are Eurasian grain is really
important for many countries across the world um that rely on on wheat as a basic staple
uh and on corn as a light as livestock feed. High global commodity prices are really a
political problem for a l
ot of these countries because a lot of these countries like Egypt
for example subsidize grain right. So if global commodity prices are high it's really expensive
for these governments to keep subsidizing and then if they don't subsidize that's politically
uh challenging because a lot of people rely on on bread. And so Russia has been sort of using uh
these Global grain uh ties uh as as leverage. And um as long as Russia is actually holding Ukrainian
grain hostage uh it is likely going to be
able to use this grade leverage in future negotiations um
as this you know. If this is basically our media thing was going to be about don't renew this just
for another 120 days it's way too unstable. So so we'll see what happens – February 18 is pretty
much just around the corner. Thanks everyone. Wonderful, thank you Suzanne. And our last uh
panelist is Elizabeth Wishnick. Thank you thank you very much to the University of Chicago for
inviting me to to speak to you. I'm going to try to t
alk both about geopolitics and about grain
– so try to make some points that related to the previous two presentations. And it's a pleasure
to talk to all of you teachers virtually. It's a complicated situation in Ukraine and I applaud
your efforts to become informed about it and to teach your students about it. First a little bit
about terminology, what do we call this conflict. Um so personally I'm going to talk about
Russia's war on Ukraine. Because um if we call it the Russia Ukraine wa
r as as in the
title it applies – to me at least – some kind of equivalence – that somehow both want to wage war.
And and from my perspective Ukraine is defending its territory. Russia attacked Ukraine um without
any justification. And so the the way we describe the conflict I think has some impact on how we
understand it. And and this is important in the context of the propaganda that Russia is putting
out about the about its activities in Ukraine and which is echoed by China and some othe
r countries.
And even in this country some news outlets echo that Russian propaganda. So so getting the the
facts straight is a challenge given given all the smoke and mirrors about the subject. So my
area of focus is on uh Russia-China relations and uh China's position on the war and what the
war means for East Asia. So the latter was what I was asked to talk about. So I'm going to focus
mostly on that. So if we look at the impact of the Russian war on Ukraine on East Asia – in a
nutshell
there are some opportunities for a few countries, namely China and India, in terms of
getting some Bargain Basement deals on energy. But largely it's a destabilizing impact on the
region. So when we think about this topic what what comes to mind immediately is Taiwan because
a lot of the news media focuses on that. What is China learning from Russia's war in Ukraine for
its own intentions to potentially invade Taiwan? So there's a lot of uh a lot of discussion a lot
of speculation. But all
of this is really high on uh speculation and low on information and facts.
Because the bottom line is that we don't really know what China is learning yet. I follow what
Chinese experts say on this topic and they the authoritative sources really say very little
at this point. And a lot is going to depend on how the conflict ends – what China is going to
learn. So I'm going to set that topic aside –we can come back to it in the discussion if if you're
interested – and talk about areas where
we have more concrete information about the impact. So
sanctions. Does China help Russia evade sanctions that were imposed by the U.S European countries
and some Asian countries? Yes and no. uh so uh yes in the sense that a trade between China
and Russia has increased by 30 percent in the last year to uh almost 200 billion dollars.
Some of that trade includes uh semiconductors which Russia needs for technologies. But Chinese
made semiconductors are not the highest quality. Um China continu
es to buy oil and gas from
Russia. As does India actually, so China has increased its energy purchases by about 40
percent uh from Russia and so it helps Russia um maintain its export revenues um and these
revenues are important for the Russian economy. India previously was not a purchaser of Russian
oil and now um uh 22 percent um of its of its imports of oil uh – one percent of its imported
oil was from Russia last prior to the Russian war – and now 22%. So huge increase from India.
So t
hat's that's the the way in which these uh some countries in Asia have helped uh Russia to
circumvent sanctions. But there's no evidence that China is selling military equipment to Russia.
They have a strategic partnership. They have areas of military cooperation. But um very few
companies have faced counter-sanctions. Chinese companies have faced counter-sanctions from
the U.S for violating uh the imposed sanctions. But the trade that uh China and Russia engage in
is important. And they al
so have uh currency swaps so instead, because Russia has difficulties
with the international banking system, they have exchanged rubles for Chinese Yuen,
which enables Russia to buy Chinese goods using Chinese currency instead of using a hard
currency which is in short supply in Russia. So those are the ways in which China in
particular has helped India despite being involved in insecurity arrangements with with
the United States through the quad mechanism is an important partner for Russia
– they have
long-standing military cooperation in terms of military production. And India has encouraged
a peaceful solution to the conflict but has not applied any pressure in terms of sanctions to
do so. And India is interested in keeping its connection to Russia because its main opponent
is China which is another partner of Russia. And it's it's much like the situation with Israel
that we heard about earlier – if India it would alienate Russia it might support China more fully
in terms
of the conflict between China and India. And so India doesn't do that. China provides
rhetorical support for Russia in the U.N security Council. It echoes Russian propaganda about the
war and so on. And it claims to be impartial although most countries see China as siding with
Russia um in terms of this of this conflict. Um so what what are the destabilizing impacts on
East Asia? So I what I described here is how how China and India have benefited to some degree
from keeping trade especial
ly in the energy sector alive with Russia. I would say that on East
Asia we have a destabilizing impact uh because you have more of a polarization. You have the US and
its allies and you have Russia and China which cooperate in terms of military exercises
in the regions, joint patrols near Japan, and so on. And you also might see more of
an arms race developing in Northeast Asia. One of the side effects of of Putin's nuclear
threats against the West to try to dissuade them from entering – o
r for or for supporting
Ukraine more more robustly – um has been uh the impact on North Korea. So is North Korea going
to be uh emboldened to use nuclear threats to achieve its its goals? We have the South Korean
government recently say they would be amenable to having U.S nuclear weapons stationed in in
South Korea again. And might and South Korea might develop its own nuclear weapon. So that's
that's a very it would be a very destabilizing uh development. And and Japan also is boosting
i
ts military uh capabilities um in recent you know in the recent period – partly because of
of the concerns about China and Taiwan. But but a whole regional dynamic could be unleashed if
North Korea and South Korea begin an arms race. Um now uh turning to Southeast Asia here's where
the grain issue comes in. Because Southeast Asian countries are big importers of Eurasian
grains. So uh ASEAN country – Southeast Asian the association of Southeast Asian Nations –
they’re major wheat importers.
They account for 15% of global wheat imports in Indonesia. An
enormous country is is one of the top importers. It was it was the second largest market for
Ukrainian wheat uh for Example. So so even though this region is very far from Ukraine,
it's been suffering from high energy prices, high food prices, and that's why we
saw the president of Indonesia try to encourage the leaders of Russia and Ukraine
to to resolve their differences Peacefully. Um and so uh what about Taiwan? Just to say a
word about Taiwan since I started off that way. Um so even though we don't know what China is
thinking about Taiwan in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine uh what has happened is that
there's a lot more focus on Taiwan in the United States in Europe. And we see a lot a lot more
diplomacy going on between the US and Taiwan, between various European leaders and Taiwan.
And there's a sense that we can't be caught flat-footed in the event of a a potential Chinese
invasion – that we have
to be better prepared in advance. Because Ukraine can be supplied um
through land corridors but Taiwan is an island. And so you would have to pre-position a lot of
equipment around um very very much in advance. And so just recently we had an agreement between the
U.S and the Philippines to have additional areas where the U.S and the Philippines could cooperate
in terms of um you know military preparations for such a an eventuality. And so I'm just going
to conclude here I think East Asia is
is quite distant from Ukraine but the conflict has had an
impact in terms of the region's geopolitics and also the region's access to resources – energy
and also grains. So I'll stop there thank you. Thank you so much Elizabeth. Um I think we have
a general picture of global – a lot of global destabilization uh caused by the war coming up as
a theme in in all three of the presenters. I have a few questions I can get to perhaps later. But
since we're at 1:20 I want to make sure we have time
for uh audience questions. So why don't
we just go ahead and open it up to questions from the audience. uh do we have uh I have a. I
have a microphone so the zoom audience will also be able to hear you. Oh wonderful. if there's
any questions from the Audience. here we go. I'm just curious more about Syria um how it's
fitting into this. You know it was such a big news story and it's almost like we've forgotten
about it. So how does this fit into the puzzle. Should I go? Well that's a you kn
ow it's
it's great a great question. And for both uh Turkey and Israel the fundamental question is –
what's going to happen not only to the future of Syria but whether Syria's relationship with Iran
and Hezbollah and Lebanon will be strengthened. Hezbollah has the ability to launch missiles
against Israel that would effectively destroy much of the country if it chose to do so. And even
with the the the anti-listic missile systems that Israel has if they if Hezbollah chose to rain down
thos
e missiles enough would get through to cause a lot of damage. And the Israelis know that. So
rather than confronting Hezbollah directly they are trying to confront Iran in Syria and send a
message to Hezbollah – and and deter Hezbollah in that particular way. And that involves
dealing with the Russians. And so there's been an understanding between Russia and Israel
about the use of force. And and there's a kind of understanding – there's a hotline if Israel was
going to go in there and atta
ck uh uh Hezbollah Iranian forces they would avoid Russian forces.
And they might even signal uh Russia ahead of time of what was coming. And and that was already
coming apart uh before the Ukraine uh Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And now it is even more
so. In fact in May of 22 Russia fired missiles at Israeli planes. So the the uh so when it comes
to sort of Israel's approach to sort of dealing with Iran in in Syria uh is definitely the case
that um it can't depend on its relationship wit
h Russia anymore to sort of contain that situation.
On the other hand it's not willing to go against Russia in Ukraine. And the Iranians feel uh that
with Russia busy bringing their mercenaries from Syria to the Ukraine to fight the war right uh
that uh that they have a lot more room to play now. And so they feel unconstrained the Israelis
feel unconstrained – so the possibility that Syria becomes a a live Battlefield in in ways that were
perhaps suggested by Israel's attack against uh Iran
ian factories outside of Damascus two weeks
ago really would suggest that that could happen. With the grain being being such an
issue in the world – a question arises, uh what about the United Nations in an
international force just to export the grain out by bringing in you know carrier groups
from three or four different countries and the United Nations saying look, “we just need to
get the food out to the rest of the world, people are starving.” Yeah great question.
So the UN's world foo
d program has has been trying to do that precisely. So that's actually
why the U.N is part of the agreement between Russia Ukraine uh and Turkey. And um so so this
this is uh happening but it's still uh sort of contingent on Russia's approval because it's
basically the Russian Navy that sits there and um can block any ship whether a U.N ship or you
know commercial vessels. And actually a lot of commercial vessels have stopped going to the Black
Sea because it's they can't get insurance actu
ally because of uh sanctions it's just too risky. So
actually there is a lot of uh UN uh involvement uh. But I'm actually to to sort of uh follow up on
that question I'll have a question for for to to um Dan about turkey because, you know if you
know the geography of the Black Sea – the ships have to go through uh the Bosphorus and Turkey
has control over all ships going in and out. And actually all of uh just to go back to Liz's
point about um energy – a lot of the Russian oil actually als
o leaves through the Bosphorus
right. So so Russia is both dependent on Turkey but Turkey is also dependent on on Russian and
Ukrainian grain. So there's a lot of mutual uh dependency and and I think the UN can be a
broker but they can't actually get countries to do what they don't want to do. That's
sort of like a long answer to your question. Dan did you want to respond to the question?
uh I did I not respond? No no no no I you it sounded like you were posing a question. oh
I see I I gue
ss maybe we should Dan can hold the question. yeah okay great okay yeah yeah
absolutely we can have a little bit change my language. I was just going to ask what Kazakhstan
has to either gain or lose in all of this? Gosh I think Liz should answer that question.
I'll uh I'll pass that. Thank you because I just spent a month in Kazakhstan actually uh in
October. And it was fascinating because that was the time when you had hundreds of thousands
of Russians fleeing there to avoid the draft. An
d so the government of Kazakhstan said that
they, that people should welcome the Russians and they refused to send them back unless they
were you know under some certain exceptional circumstances. But uh but the government
of Kazakhstan also refused to recognize the Russian annexations of – so-called annexations
– of Ukrainian territory. So Kazakhstan is is trying to avoid antagonizing Russia, having a very
long border with Russia also, but also trying to avoid being the next target uh on t
he list uh
that uh Vladimir Putin has on his desk of of um former Imperial lands that he would like to
reconquer. So uh it's it's a difficult spot in uh it's an anxiety producing situation. And it
came in a bad time for Kazakhstan because the Chinese border was closed for a long time due
to Covid. And so Kazakhstan was having trouble um you know with its trade to to China.
And then now Russia is uh is relying on Kazakhstan as well as on other countries –
Georgia, Turkey – as a as a conduit
for trade um to keep the Russian economy going. So so
Kazakhstan is a is in a kind of anxious uh spot and would like I think both to engage more with
other Central Asian countries and with countries uh other countries than Russia and China to try
to in you know diversify its foreign policy. But I would just add to what Suzanne said about
energy – the energy exports I was talking about to Asia don't come from the Bosphorus they
come from Siberia – so they come from uh the Asian part of Russ
ia. So they would not be
affected by what's going on in the Bosphorus. If I could just add a quick note here and
because it'll fill in and also respond to something you said. And that is, I mean the the
fundamental Point here is that Turkey now is – Erdogan is trying to repair his his relations
witha lot of countries. Interestingly Israel has been a major uh focus. Dubai has been another
focus. But Russia and the rapproachment between Russia and Turkey is the key story here. Because
uh Tur
key opposed Assad and wanted to bring him down, and therefore it made the Iranians and and
Russians very unhappy. And now they've basically given up on that and they're actually look like
they might re-establish relations uh with uh with Assad and Damascus. So that really changes
the name of the game. So what is Turkey's basic interest? To destroy the Kurdish movement. And
that of course affects the U.S position because we have close alliances – not that we haven't
walked away from the Kurd
ish movement when it was in our strategic interest. But nevertheless that
poses uh real problems. And Russia has bought uh and purchased advanced anti-aircraft missile
systems from uh – Rather turkey has purchase advanced anti-missile systems from uh from Russia.
So that relationship there is just indicative of the fact that uh as much as the United States is
trying to exercise influence in the Middle East, uh Russia and China but particularly Russia as
well in many respects well ahead of u
h the U.S. How does the relationship between Russia and
Turkey impact Turkey's decision to allow Sweden to be joined NATO? Do you feel that's a factor or is
it other factors the Russian-Turkish relationship? Could you repeat that question one more time? Well
right now Turkey is holding out on Sweden being introduced into NATO or joining NATO and I'm just
questioning like how much of that is the Russian uh Turkey's relationship or you know how
how much impact is that in Turkey trying to main
tain relationship with Russia. I'm not
I don't know I don't have enough information to answer that question. Obviously it must be
a major consideration for for Turkey. But it's relations well before that with the United States
we're declining. And this and uh and Turkey was resisting the American efforts to get them to
shut down the missile agreement with with Russia. Turkey is a member of NATO of course uh and yet
in many respects it's behaved very differently than all the other members of
NATO. So I
think that my speculation would be that Turkey's trying to prove a point with Sweden and
Finland and may wreck the the ability because they have a veto power as you suggest over that
decision. So you know Erdogan's got an election coming up in June. And the the opposition
remains split but you never know that could be maybe temporarily overcome. So he really
wants he uses. Erdogan is very adept at using regional and global foreign policy to reinforce
this regime and I think tha
t's what's going on. Thank you so um we're at what 90 seconds to
midnight right now is is where they they updated the atomic disaster clock. And I understand that
Ukraine obviously this should be sort of their choice whether they continue with this war or
not. But there's obviously external factors. It is having such a huge impact on everything in the
world. We're looking at at, um I mean you know, I don't think anybody would argue that Putin
is a huge narcissist. Would he push the button?
You know I mean we all say horrible
things about him so I mean you know what what makes us think he wouldn't? And
then of course there's uh the possibility of escalation between us and China and
Taiwan. Um at what point well what's the way out I guess. Is there a way out of this
because this is such a such a bloody mess. Very simple question for all of
you, what's the way out of this? Yeah I feel like if we had an
answer we wouldn't be sitting here. Um yeah it's the million dollar question
right? I
think we I think you know as much as everyone can sort of speculate about what is going on uh in the
you know Inner Circle of the Putin leadership and the sort of. There's a lot of struggles between
Putin and his inner circle and then the military. But but we we just don't really know that much
right. I've studied Russia for for you know two decades I can't even remember. And and you
know we we have very uh limited knowledge. And and so I think we don't know what could make
Russi
a stop. So so I actually tend to think you know you said you know Ukraine could stop?
You know I think we also need to mostly think about what since Russia is the aggressor
what could make Russia stop. But I think um you know one way of thinking about this to me a
likely situation is kind of some kind of frozen uh conflict. Right the conflict will not be resolved
but there there might be you know. Right now the conflict is still ramping up there's more troops
pouring in there's more violenc
e. You know other conflicts in this region are have sort of reached
stalemates in what are called frozen conflicts right. So there's there's sort of a temporary
very contingent very tenuous agreement – okay we're gonna just keep our lines here. And you
know Dan and Liz can weigh in what that would entail. I think it would entail some kind of
agreement on territorial temporary boundaries. It would uh agree – entail these agreements
about the Black Sea and exports. It would entail agreements
about how they would relate to
Iran and Turkey and NATO and Western allies. So so I think there's a lot of sort of uh steps and
agreements that have to be reached even for this sort of sub-optimal frozen conflict. I think that
it, but that is a sort of more realistic scenario than sort of like you know what does it take
to reach peace. I mean that's my it's my take. I don't know what – I do want my colleagues to
weigh in here though. I want I Liz to weigh in. Then I could I feel safe to say
. Oh thank you.
Um well first I think that what happens in Taiwan has nothing to do with what happens in Ukraine.
China has wanted to uh what – they claim that that Taiwan is a part of their territory. They
wanted to so-called “reunify” it since 1949. So they'll do that when they feel – they'll try to
do that when they feel they could successfully achieve their goal. And it hasn't I don't think
what Russia is doing has any impact on that. But in terms of the situation on the ground in
Ukra
ine – we had previously a, what we thought was a frozen conflict after 2014 in Ukraine. And
it did not prove to be a stable outcome. It kind of emboldened I think Putin to believe that he
could he could easily finish the job. Because he managed to take over Crimea in a few days and was
expecting a similar outcome this time. So I think he uses the threat of nuclear
use to try to dissuade other countries from helping Ukraine and to
increase the costs of of military aid. But I don't think he's
likely to follow through
in any major way. I mean I think a realistic concern is some kind of tactical nuclear
weapon use on the battlefield which could lead to some kind of escalation. But I
don't see a very good scenario because unless Russia is defeated on the battlefield
in some significant way I think that that these so-called frozen conflicts are going to become hot
conflicts. And some Russian officials have made very alarming claims about Kazakhstan for example.
That Kazakhstan is
also a fake country and and you know Russia should look next at Kazakhstanzas.
So there's a lot of concern that if Russia isn't more forcefully stopped in this area than it
creates a lot more insecurity in the future. But I don't know how this is you know
it's going to play out on the battlefield. We're in a pause situation and a new offensive is
going to happen. And um I don't think we're gonna have peace at least unless Russia will be expelled
from the territories it took after February 2
4th and go back to the status quo ante. I don't think
anything less it would be acceptable. And in many countries that are supporting Ukraine want – want
a more conclusive victory for stability in Europe. I'll just add very quickly on this. That was –
I really benefited from Liz’s insight in this. I mean I think it's important to keep in mind that
–while there's obviously an effective alliance between Russia and and China – China's Global
interests are not the same as Russia's interests. An
d particularly in terms of economic footprint.
In fact China had invested a lot in Ukraine. From what I could tell the Chinese were shocked and
very deeply worried by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and didn't expect that. There was a lot
of speculation of whether Putin and the Chinese leadership had coordinated. But from the little
I've seen it doesn't seem to be the case. Quite the contrary, because that kind of action uh is
not something that China would necessarily see is useful for its
own economic interests or
strategic interest. And I think it it – that and the other thing is of course there's there
was an understanding on on the status of Taiwan. Maybe it's inevitable that it will fall apart.
Maybe it's inevitable that China would go into Taiwan. But I think the events have speeded
up the disintegration of that agreement. Or certainly made it much more wobbly. One
can debate whether in fact Pelosi's visit to Taiwan was useful or not. But in some sense
these events se
em to be converging. And there's an interesting argument among policy makers in in
Washington about the extent to which the U.S might have played its cards differently. Tom Friedman
who's not a policy maker but has influences the debate sometime had a very aggressive piece
in New York Times saying Pelosi should not go and that we should do everything we can
not to turn China into kind of enemy that we don't need. So I'm not saying – I'm not coming
down on that debate. But I think if in term
s of sort of teaching about this conflict we have
to recognize and impart to our students a sense of the complexity of these issues and the
various um interests. And particularly where and how the tension between Russia and China
play out as opposed to just seeing them as obvious allies who are going to coordinate
because they always have mutual interests. Thanks for all your contributions. I
think one one question that I have is about – relates to American credibility
on the world stage a
nd whether or not – to what extent that is influential in
this conflict and whether or not that would have – its influence would have been different
um had the United States not eroded a lot of its International credibility through wars
in the Middle East and also in the various breaking of international agreements
during the Trump Administration. I did hear the a perspective from from one
commentator that had the United States not engaged in these kinds of activities that there
would be a
more effective ability to rally support you know for Ukraine. Whereas today then
there's a more sort of diffused um influence around the world and therefore you know we're now
looking at multiple theaters of potential conflict and space being filled by other actors. So I guess
I mean, my question is whether or not uh you think that's a convincing argument, or whether you
think that this actually has less to do with U.S credibility on the world stage and more to do
with how the Internationa
l System operates today. wow Liz do you want to take this question? Yeah
I'll take a stab at it. It's a great question. I think that – as I said before I
think the U.S. responses to previous Russian interventionism was a
factor. And there was just a great show on Frontline this week on Putin and
previous presidents. And it shows how the U.S reacted very ineffectually to
to earlier conflicts in Georgia in 2008 and in Ukraine in 2014. And Putin had
the idea he could get away with this. And a
lso he was overconfident and thought he could
carry out his plan very quickly – which turned out to be false. So I think that's that's a part of
it. I don't, I'll let others talk about the you know the Middle East Wars. But from my from
my point of view I think I think what what we should keep in mind is that Russia and China both
have effective propaganda machines that they use especially in the developing world and in areas
where the US has ceded the stage like Africa. You have Russia and
China being much more
involved than the US and even though like the anti-colonial argument should resonate
in Africa the propaganda that they're getting from China and Russia I think supersede some of
those arguments. But remember one of the best um pro-Ukraine speeches at the UN was
by the Kenyan representative early on. And so I think there are different views in the
developing world. In Asia which I'm more familiar with, the Ukraine had some sympathy because
there's a lot of concern ab
out sovereignty in Asia. But the countries are dependent
on these grain flows. And so I don't think it's U.S credibility that is restraining these
countries from more overtly supporting Ukraine. I think it's the fact that they're really
being beaten by these adverse economic winds. And so they're just trying to stay afloat in that
kind of situation. But I mean U.S credibility has increased actually because we've managed to
keep a very strong coalition of European and like-minded allies in A
sia on this topic. Yeah
I would agree with that I mean I think that um NATO was in a state of crisis and of course
that was accelerated by Trump who basically did everything he could it seemed to undermine NATO.
And the boomerang effect of Russia's invasion uh of Ukraine has been to strengthen NATO and to
create the possibility that NATO have might have two more members. So I think in that sense it's
uh it's it's not working out the way that Putin probably had imagined. But I do think that
both
in terms of Obama's approach to Syria when he threatened the use of weapons if the Syrians would
use uh the regime would use gas and then he did not. Said there was a red line then ignored it
or created an excuse. But even more so Trump's neo-isolationist policy which is basically “we
don't owe anybody nothing and we're pulling out and we're you know we're not we're not going to be
involved” really sort of signal and acceleration of of um of declining U.S interests – uh declining
us i
nvolvement. You know many Middle East countries are are formerly part of a kind of a
widened NATO alliance. They have a special sort of status. That includes Israel and at least one Gulf
country. And but what does that mean when in fact throughout the Middle East the U.S position on
Ukraine is not viewed very favorably. That's for sure. Annd so um it does you know, it does it does
raise questions about the extent to which the US is able to influence the Players. There was a
very good piece
in New York Review of Books a couple weeks ago saying basically that Israel and
Iran are determining U.S foreign policy right now. And they're you know some some there's some truth
to that – but I'm talking about in in the Middle East here. But in terms of Western Europe and
Eastern Europe Biden I think has done a pretty good job of handling the crisis and fixing some of
the damage that had really resulted from Trump's mishandling in almost every way of U.S foreign
policy. Including by the
the damaging decision to get out of the Iran nuclear deal which we we
have paid a very high price for. Because I wonder – thinking counter factually – had the deal been
sustained and had the reformers in Iran seen their seen the wind behind their sails, whether Iran
would be behaving in the same way. I don't think it's obvious that it would be. But from Iran's
perspective they sign an agreement the U.S pulled out of it and you know now we're getting our just
desserts. And they're exercising
that retribution in Ukraine. So you know there's a lot of – I think
we've made decisions particularly under Trump that really have influenced the perceptions of all the
players. And in the case of Syria the sense that the U.S is basically no longer an effective player
at all. Which is largely the case right? And once the Kurds are eliminated politically or physically
or whatever even more so. So it's uh but I mean the Silver Lining here if there is one is that
definitely Biden has been abl
e to resuscitate NATO. And you know if you're if you're a Pole,
you know what your conclusions are. Looking at what Russia has done – we're next or whatever. So
that I understand that. Yeah often last year I was wondering how this sort of played out differently
if it had happened under Trump. I think I think it would have played out really differently.
Trump was hostile towards NATO. He was you know hostile towards Ukraine actually you know. He
used, he wanted to use Ukrainian politics for
his own political gains — it you know I I do not
see this. And I think Putin was sort of at first that was kind of gaming on – or miscalculating on
a sort of more of that kind of U.S response – kind of the the we're not so concerned about
the rest of the world type of response. My question is what happened to the
European Union? Like they are very quiet. They should take initiative in here and they just
try to wait out this conflict. They would like to do business again with Putin. And anot
her thing
as far as the refugees European Union is not very much involved. When we had your refugees from
different areas they were providing aid but as far as Ukrainian they kind of don't get involved.
Yeah I think Europe is actually divided and I think a lot of European countries are taking a
lot of uh refugees. So Poland and Hungary and I I think also Germany have a lot of refugees.
The UK has also been quite in favor of helping Ukraine. And I think you know I was at
a conference in Fin
land in the fall and and they were mostly European participants and they were
all disagreeing with each other. Right so I think you know Germany's position has has always been
or you know since the 70s quite pro-Russian right. Like they you know and more pro-Russian than
Americans would like right. They have uh Germany has gained from Trading with the Soviet Union and
then and then Russia. And then it's obviously the the energy link right. But then other countries in
the European Union are
are uh more worried about Russia right. APoland is the Eastern European
members are actually leading the the the sort of charge on this. Right so German you know this is
a case of the tanks right. It took Germany forever to agree on exporting the tanks. But the Poles
and the Hungarians and and the Slovaks had already you know agreed to exporting the tanks they
were just waiting for the German approval. So I guess Europe is not a unitary actor. But
as a whole the European Union as a governin
g body has has been quite supportive of Ukraine
I think. And you know the the energy question looms large but I think uh it's also about as you
said refugees and and weapons. And they have sort of you know been sometimes quite slow but they
have maintained unity with the US sort of in the end as the sort of EU as a body even though
some member countries are even slower and so on. You know depending which European country
are you're paying a very different price for the energy situation. So
the differences in
terms of the energy equation I think are very important. It's easy to be critical of Germany
or whatever but you know you got a cold winter on your hands or whatever. So it is a tough
situation but the EU is a trading organization right it's not basically a military organization
so it's not going to have a decisive influence. But they did impose sanctions I would say.
Pretty strong sanctions and they agreed to a cap on oil prices so. Right that's
true right yeah they've
added managed to deal with a very complex situation. And
of course the long-term impact is going to be that the European countries will find
a way around dependence on Russian gas. And you know that's a positive outcome, so
the question is how to get through this. So it seems that the input from this panel
has added several layers more of complexity in looking at the Russian war on Ukraine. Whether
it's geopolitical or economic or a combination of the two. And that's fascinating but also ma
kes
it intimidating to think about conveying that level of complexity in a high school classroom.
And so I was wondering as as kind of a takeaway – I kind of have a two-part question – one for our subject area expert presenters if there's sort
of a broader generalist level version of what you're trying to convey that we can take you know
in addition to our pages of notes. Like some kind of if you're trying to explain what you just said
to your own high school kid and their friends how do yo
u convey that. And then to the Educators
in the class uh in the session – to me it seems like this – I'm not an educator yet myself I'm
just learning –but it seems that it would lend itself to like a like a role play kind of thing.
Like maybe not even as complicated as a model UN. Maybe more like a board game or something where
you're Indonesia and you have to acquire this much credits of grain or whatever. Is this something
that any of you have done with like a contemporary um issue. Are t
here organizations that
that do this. You know basically how would you approach something this complex and
bringing it down to a high school level. So I'll I'll take that question and I actually
have to run out out in a few minutes to teach my class. So I apologize if I don't actually
provide a sufficient answer and I won't be able uh to stick around. So please feel free to email
me you know my I'm at Notre Dame my my email is on the website or Esther or Krishna can pass it on.
So you know
a big sort of very general thing that I sometimes teach my student is. We're very used
to take thinking about countries as colored blobs on the map right. “Look at the map” you know “this
is one color blob and this is another color blob.” But in terms of what the things that I study
it's actually flows of things that connect the blobs right. So there's you know grain and
energy and human you know refugees and workers and often the sort of actual lives of people are
more influenced by these
flows than by the color of your blob. Sure you're Ukrainian right and
there's like that national identity and Russian identity. But you know where where your grain is
going to come from if your house is heated or not um uh depends on on the flows right. And on your
dependency on who's who's supplying whatever is flowing right. So I guess in terms of maybe your
own thinking or class prepping like. You know it doesn't actually it's not that hard to figure
out the flows if you think about the
flows but sometimes we don't think about the flows because
we're sort of stuck in the colored blob world. So um I I will take off but
thanks so much again and and good luck with that complexity we're
all we're all right there with you. I don't that's a tough that's a great question.
I started out with that issue in my presentation because I do think it's important to sensitize
students to the some sense of trying to what what are our basic frameworks for making
sense of any politics. And
and that's not an easy thing to teach but I think it's somehow
important to get them sensitive to it because um what we interpret as the facts are not obvious
and I think some some ability to be sort of critical thinkers in that regard is important.
But I think that um I think that what we need what they need to know is what are the particular
from the perspectives of the governments in these countries – what are their particular interests;
strategic, economic, in particular security. And h
ow the sort of status of those interests before
the conflict created a certain sort of set of understandings which you can list pretty clearly.
And then sort of go through an analysis of how those understand endings those accommodations
were sort of literally and figuratively blown up. Maybe that's too too ambitious but I think
that that's doable. But I think your your point about you know essentially some sort of game in
which you're sort of each each person is asked to play the role of a
particular country and to get
an assignment to assess their interests and then sort of play it out to see what what would have
been their best their best move or not their best move something like that would be very useful.
But it's hard to teach because it is even for us sitting here in this room. I mean it took me weeks
and months to go through notes and try to figure some of this out for myself. So I think it's you
know I think it's it's it's doable but we really have to sort of do our –
literally our homework
before we step into this with with our students. I agree this is this is a very complex case.
In terms of my region what I was trying to to show is that uh Russia's war on Ukraine
is – provides some opportunities for some countries like China and India in terms of um
cheaper access to energy. But there are a lot of costs for other countries in terms of uh
economic costs because of rising food prices, less access to food, and because other
countries are watching this
war and learning lessons. Like North Korea is learning that
nuclear threats might help them and so on. But there is one resource I would direct you
to. Can I share my screen, is that possible? Eugene? Yes yes. Okay I'm gonna share my screen
then let's see if I can find – uh where is it. Okay um so this is from the council. (I'm think I think
I'm frozen - I do you hear me or am I frozen? yes okay okay my my photo is frozen) But this is
from the Council on Foreign Relations. Its cfr.org. And
they have these uh simulation case
studies that are free. And they have these what they call pop-up cases on on current events and.
So they have a whole series on Ukraine. So I've used these – I you know taught at the college
level but I'm sure you could adapt this kind of material for a high school classroom pretty
easily. But what's handy about them is that they give you the facts they give you a sense
of who roles and. I mean they have quizzes and things on the side which I never used.
But it's
a useful way to start off if you're looking for a way to create a a simulation. So I always love
doing simulations in the classroom and I think this would be great. Because you know
countries do have different interests and when you put students in the roles of different
countries they can really see that more clearly. I want to add that a few years ago at a similar
event like this – I think all it was in the fall –we had a representative from CFR actually talk
about – obviously i
t wasn't about the Russia Russia's invasion of Ukraine – but I know there's
links to that on our educator Outreach page uh so that'll help you so if if you're trying to.
We'll get this link and set it and get it up on the resources page for this event. But if
you're curious if you look at past events on the educator Outreach page you'll also see links to to
different of these simulations from – I don't know it was before covid so I don't remember the year.
Yeah so but thank you for recallin
g that resource because I was like “oh I wonder if CFR has done
anything on uh on this particular conflict.” Yeah and they also have a whole um uh section of
their think tank that deals with education. And as an educator you can sign up for free and you
can listen to weekly talks by experts, you can have your class attend some of these talks. And
they’re policy talks so so they're not heavy on theory and I think for upper level high school
students it could be interesting and useful. Anothe
r interesting perspective is psychology of
leaders. I mean you can gain a lot just reading speeches by Putin and get a sense of sort of
where he's coming from and what his greatest fears are in the sense of his ability to express
collective Russian humiliation for the end of the Cold War which he described as the biggest
geostrategic you know calamity in the world or whatever. And without trying to make excuse
for or rationalize his actions I think in having some sort of understanding of wh
at’s making
people like Putin tick and how that evolves over time is useful. Biographies can be helpful
but they can just read his you can just read the speeches. Read Bibi Netanyahu's speeches. You
know what's make what makes him tick. You know what makes the Iranian leaders. I mean there's
there's a lot out there that's translated that could give a provide a helpful perspective
on sort of how they view the world and might explain some of their actions, or at least have
a sense of what th
e possible explanations are. Well I think we are just about at time so I
just want to thank our panelists once again. Thank you Dan. Thank you Suzanne. Thank
you thank you Liz. And thank you Eugene. So we have come to the end of our
program today. And I want to thank you all so much for participating and
being here on this very chilly day. We really appreciate you making the effort
to come out here and participate in an in-person professional development program.
We really really want to t
hank you for that. Just to close, as Esther mentioned we will have
all the resources that were mentioned during this series of presentations available on our UChicago
educator Outreach webpage after the event. Usually it takes us a couple weeks to get all that
stuff organized but we will send a follow-up email to everyone who attended uh with the
recordings and with the resource links and Etc.
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