Understanding Russia: Nikolas K. Gvosdev, PhD

This lecture took place on May 24, 2024.
About the Speaker: Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Ph.D.,
Professor, National Security Affairs
Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College. He holds non-residential fellowships with Foreign Policy Research Institute (editor of “Orbis”) and Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs (co-host of the “Doorstep” podcast). He is a member of Loisach Group, a collaboration between the Munich Security Conference and the Marshall Center to enhance U.S. and Germany’s security partnership. He is a contributing editor for The National Interest. He has taught at Baylor, Georgetown, George Washington, Harvard Extension and Brown universities. From 2016-20, he held the Captain Jerome E. Levy Chair in economic geography and national security.
The views presented by the faculty or other guest speakers do not reflect official positions of the Naval War College, DON or DOD.

[@Discipe]

Calling Dugin a Russian political philosopher is too far-fetched, in my view. He looks, speaks, and behaves as a marginal freak. It's truly hard to believe he could have any weight in political system. This claim is so out of reach that I'm not sure how good other points are. They sound logical, but still, it is a view of an outsider who only pretends that he "thinks like a russian leader."

[@pitthistoryguy1301]

Russia / Putin's regime are described as a black box, a collection of characteristics with no insight on the how or why of their perspective. I attended many or Dr Joseph Wieczynski's Slavic History classes at Va Tech and am very interested.

[@jorgemario1586]

US relations with the world are based on the respect of self determination of all countries... 😂😂 Ask a guatemalan citizen... 😂😂😂😂

[@justinmathews8507]

12 minutes in, and the lecture sounds like he has been reading off Russia's Wikipedia page.

[@massimo9533]

Long live to the american empire! Kind regards from the subject nation of Italy. Stay strong dear american masters.

[@sophiaplastun8972]

In terms of Russia we always should remember that we are talking about archaic outdated society and economy with traditional mind rooted neglect of individual rights and interest and clear genocidal practices toward culture, traditions, languages of national groups. Look at Russian map in terms of population distribution and roads infrastructure - you will notice how easily can this “country” fall apart

[@Anilkumar-ze8po]

Amazing...thanks a tonne for this work.

[@bdnevins]

Great lecture. In this brief time, he did not address the failures of US policy regarding Latin America and Iran. These events were carried out "under the radar" of Congress and US voters. The agreed on policy of the voters and most of the government is that Japan, Germany, etc should govern their own affairs. This is quite different than the situation of the Warsaw pact nations during the Cold War, or of Belarus now.

[@sophiemariekung5086]

Ambassadors must comprehend Axis Forces' 21st-century grand strategy to explain the current events. Japan sent Francis Fukuyama to carry out the WWIII plan as the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. State Department from 1981 to 1989. Fukuyama is a city in Hiroshima where the U.S. dropped the atomic bomb. In 1989, Fukuyama was the deputy director for European political-military affairs, leading to NATO expansion in central and eastern Europe, i.e., Georgia and Ukraine. Being inside, Fukuyama knew the Soviet Union would collapse due to Brezhnev's 'Era of Economic Stagnation' 1964-1982, so he published 'The End of History' on Feb 1, 1989, resulting in U.S. policy change towards international liberal order, aiming at against Russia and China. The tensions in Europe and Asia are caused by the Axis Forces wanting WWIII in the Atlantic and the Pacific theaters to achieve WWII's failure, expanding their territories. War requires planning; it isn't spontaneous: Ukraine against Russia or Taiwan province and the Philippines against China.

[@Leonardo-or1ll]

53:30 Seems like the realist perspective is the correct perspective and the idealist democratic perspective is only one that can be afforded by a wealthy country which has never experienced desperation