MSSR 2023 | Thomas Graham: The Changing Foundations of U.S. Russia Policy

Thomas E. Graham, a distinguished fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, delivered a keynote speech at the Monterey Summer Symposium in Armenia & Georgia from July 2 to July 18, 2023. The Symposium is organized by the Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies, Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.
Among other positions, Thomas E. Graham served as special assistant to the US president and senior director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007, during which he managed a White House-Kremlin strategic dialogue. He was director for Russian affairs on the staff from 2002 to 2004. Dr. Graham is a co-founder of the Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies program at Yale University and sits on its faculty steering committee.
The question and answer session (Q&A) of all Monterey Summer Symposium on Russia events is exclusive to our fellows. We do not record the Q&A session.
Media support for the Monterey Summer Symposium 2023 is provided by CivilNet Civilitas Foundation (www.civilnet.am, KZbin @CivilNetTV).
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[@yourbestguess]

Would be nice if the US really did promote and uphold democracy

[@antisoviet8892]

.....starting from itself. Looking in the mirror more often would definitely help here.

[@Igorstadnick]

Whitewashed the bombing of Belgrade in 1999. Cynicism.

[@yourbestguess]

So many points that are so obviously incorrect. Most notably that USA has a major collaboration with Saudi Arabia and gulf states that are not even remotely democratic.

[@antisoviet8892]

Collaboration implies working together in achieving a common goal. There is no common goal in dealing with Saudis. The UK once installed a corrupt authoritarian regime in SA to exploit its reaches and since them that formula has been applied by the post-imperialist countries (US, UK, France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Italy) in various parts of the world to retain their economic/financial and political influence over the overseas territories to benefit from cheap human and mineral resources. But no more. The global South is on the verge of revolting to gain true freedom and independence at last. It is a hard and painful process which will surely be hindered by the past "beneficiaries". No way back. We'll all have to walk that road and come out as new nations, new countries, new peoples. Good luck to us all as some are not gonna make it.

[@user-up4bu4rs9e]

Thank you for sharing this😊

[@FrancesSanchez-gw7lt]

COLD WAR DID NOT END/IT WAS PAUSED

[@antisoviet8892]

War is the constant companion of mankind, as the Red Cross founder Henry Dunant once said. In other words, war is life as much as life can't exist without wars in once shape and form or the other.

[@yuliandimitrov5591]

Thanks for the recollection of very popular throughout the last 10s of 20th and the first 10s of 21st centuries ideological messages (US propaganda). However, I consider such a narrative outdated because of the ongoing transformations in the world geopolitics. And perhaps even more important, lack of sincere self-criticism and thus not able to provide with insights for dealing with the future challenges.

[@barcode6495]

What was all that. Repeated the same thing for over an hour. Duhh

[@popkinbobkin]

33:50 why not? You sure do like to state what and when Russia violated or did wrong.

[@wernervoss6357]

All he did was rehash the well-known past. Unless this was meant to he some "clever" commentary that the future is doomed to repeat the past (which is untrue, unless we subscribe to the racial theories some advance that there is something fundamentally different about the Russians than about the British, the Germans, the French, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Serbs, the Spanish, the Portuguese, the Chileans, etc.), then the title is a bit misleading.

[@wernervoss6357]

​@@minka6Doesn't matter if they are "European" or not, whatever that means. Do you think Asians cannot be anything other than "weak and imperial, to cover up that weakness?"

[@wernervoss6357]

I pointed out that none of the countries we claim hold "Western values" held them...until they did. Russian values are considerably more "Western" and modern than, say, Japanese values until they were defeated in WWII. Europe did not become what we believe Europe is today until warring European empires attempted to eradicate each other in the last century. There is nothing special about Europeans that makes them Western, nor is there anything special about Russians that makes them "other." We see Russia had a chance once, and it was scuttled by poor decisions on the part of its leadership and of ours (I am an American). There will be more opportunities in the future.

[@paulzx5034]

​​@@wernervoss6357Hi from Russia. 1. Liberals, communists and monarchists has a zero chance, because they already fail. Nationalists on the rise now, they are nice and clean. So either Putin type imperialism, or aggressive nationalism. 2. To promote democracy in the world you must fix yourself first. Nobody loves losers, and US democratic system is falling apart right before our eyes. I think in the end you overcome the crisis, but for now you better learn how to co-exist with other political systems, very useful skill in XXI century. 3. The main issue with democracy in Russia - you somehow view us as a story of failure. While we think of Russia as a story of success. Losing battles or even wars - yep, s**t happens. Still our system are clearly capable to produce outstanding results both domestically and on the world stage. We not a broken nation like Germans or third world quasi-nation of some sort. In Russia liberal ideas facing a mighty opponent of traditional Russian imperialism who actually works. --- Sorry for brkn English

[@sanpotkins4705]

Count on one of you idiotic Americans to bring race into it. ******* are not a part of this problem

[@christiansmith-of7dt]

If anyone else killed more they sure never let me know about it

[@willshen6597]

Interesting talk. Good videography too.

[@Igorstadnick]

Absolute PR.