Angry Planet - How Garry Kasparov sees the chess match between Russia and the West

Episode Date: February 9, 2016

Garry Kasparov, a Russian opposition leader who was ranked as the world's best chess player for most of 20 years, has a problem with the West’s response to Vladimir Putin’s Russia and warns of the dangers of the nation's global influence. The title of his new book – Winter Is Coming – is a conscious play on the famous Game of Thrones TV and book series and the sense of darkness stalking the world.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast? Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. The opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the participants, not of Reuters' news. We are facing an enemy that is not looking for compromises. All these non-democratic authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial regimes, they need conflict, an ongoing conflict with the free world to justify their very existence.

I recently got a chance to sit down with Gary Kasparov, perhaps the greatest chess player of all time, as well as a leader of Russia's democratic opposition to Vladimir Putin's regime. While the interview was for another Reuters show, the exchange, I thought it might be interesting to war college listeners as well. While we talked a bit about Kasparov's new book, Winter is Coming, We mainly focused on the state of Russia as well as U.S. foreign policy. You're listening to War College, a weekly discussion of a world in conflict focusing on the stories behind the front lines. Here's your host, Jason Fields.

Hello, and welcome to the exchange. I'm your host, Jason Fields. With me today is one of Russia's best-known opposition leaders and world chess champion, Gary Kasparov. Gary is the chairman of New York-based Human Rights Foundation, and he's the author of a new book, Winter is Coming. Gary, thank you for joining me. Thanks for inviting me. So the title of your book is Winter is Coming, and when you were thinking of the title, were you talking about power struggles within Russia? Were you thinking of it in terms of, I mean, because right now, winter is coming. All people think about Game of Thrones.

Yeah, naturally, it's a homage to the books and the TV show. Because the idea of this winter is coming matter is that we have to be ready for dark and dangerous times ahead of us. And it's not just climate, it's kind of evil, and we can't be prepared, and we can try to sort of shorten this geopolitical winter, or it could last for much longer if we are not ready. And also, I thought it would be important to emphasize

the fact that history is not linear, but it works in cycles. Somehow it's in the delayed debate with Francis Fukuyama, best-selling book, The End of History, and I was very proud and honor that he agreed to give a blurb to this book, because at that time in 1992, we all, including myself, shared this optimism. The history was over, the liberal democracy has won, but the evil doesn't disappear. It can be buried under the rubbles of Berlin Wall, but eventually it sprouts out. And now we are entering this season. So it's very important to understand that, you know, we have to learn how it worked in the past, you know, going back, you know, like in the chess game,

analyzing the frameworks and the result of the Cold War that was won by the Free World and to see, you know, what we can do now to make sure that, you know, the future will not be covered by, you know, by a dark winter. So, I mean, when we're talking about this, we're clearly talking about Vladimir Putin in a large part and a sense of a new Cold War. of Russia once again being in opposition to the West? Yeah, I think one of the problems today that is people believed after the end of the Cold War and collapse of the Soviet Union, it's all war, and now we could have conflicts, small conflicts, but no more existential threats,

no more sort of ideology that would be facing the free world and threatening its very existence. We do not have the same existential threat as the Soviet Union. Naturally, Putin's rush today is a pale shadow, economically, militarily, and even politically, geopolitically, all of the Soviet Union. Yes, there's no ideology that could attract hundreds and hundreds of millions of people because they understand. Putin is a dictator who just, you know, wants to stay in power. And there's no ideology behind it. It's a power game.

But at the same time, we have other branches of evil. You have Iranian mullahs. You have ISIS, Al-Qaeda, North Korean dictators. And it's quite difficult to see what brings them together. So why I believe that they're Putin and ISIS, they belong to the other side of this world. So it says this is invisible fence that divides us on them. Because we live in a world where we want progress,

we want to compete in ideas, in innovations, in technologies. So it's about progress. They live in a world where such competition is deadly. for them because they cannot justify why they want to stay in power forever. And all these non-democratic authoritarian, totalitarian, dictatorial regimes, they need conflict, an ongoing conflict with the free world to justify their very existence. And that's why I believe Putin is the most dangerous enemy because he, because of Russian nukes, he can defy the free world, he can defy the United States, and he can violate all the treaties

Russia's sign. And Putin's defiance creates very fertilized ground for other wrong non-democratic terrorist groups because they could see an opportunity. They could grab this opportunity because in these muddy waters, they all could hope to sort of score points by attacking the free world and especially the United States. Okay, so Putin actually almost as an ageist, protecting other forces is what you're saying. Directly or indirectly. Asset directly, of course. So does that mean that his influence, I mean, he's actually, and I don't mean to use him interchangeably for Russia, they're not the same thing, of course. But do you see him actively reaching out beyond Russia's borders?

I mean, beyond militarily, because, of course, there's a campaign in Syria, there was a campaign in Ukraine as well. But do you see it as more pervasive than that? We don't know what Putin will do when he gets desperate. It isn't a very difficult situation, but oil, you know, the oil prices sliding down. And if oil gets to 20 and Russia, Putin's Russia is bankrupt, who knows what he will do? Because in the last few years, we could see that his response to economic challenges was always the same, you know, to create more tension outside of Russia. So foreign aggression becomes his only tool to pacify domestic protests. So the Putin's domestic propaganda is based on confrontation.

It's like a cult of death. It's all about enemies. And Putin is very good in creating enemies. And I'm afraid that if he gets really desperate, you know, he could have some kind of hybrid war with Estonia and Latvia. It's, of course, NATO. And crossing NATO borders could be a very different story. But so far, you know, Putin's so very little determination,

resolved from the free world and, of course, from the United States, first of all, to impose policy of deterrence. And, yeah, that's actually something that struck me in your book, is this lack of will towards confrontation from the West. You know, when someone's aggressive, as you see it, sometimes at least the West backs off. Almost always. Almost always, yes.

You know, yeah, I do understand the mentality of people in Europe and in this country after, especially after wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you know, people weary of these endless wars and they do not understand why America should be engaged all over this world trying to play a role of global policemen. Europe, of course, believes in negotiations, in compromises, in finding always the common ground. But the problem is that, you know, we are facing the enemy

that is not looking for compromises. So dictators do not stop until they stop. They do not ask why. They ask why not. And some enemies are worse having. And that's why I always want to refer to the Cold War and to mainly to U.S. presidents, but also to some European leaders. You know, because at that time from Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, the United States foreign policy was consistent. There were some, you know, changes but within a range.

And presidents, both Democrats and Republicans, they did. they did understand, you know, the threat coming from the Soviet Union, from communism, and they were working towards this common goal, and they were building institutions. So that's why it's very dangerous today to keep asking, what we do today, today, now, now, now. We should, you know, hollow rest, you know, look back, analyze the game, mistakes we made, and start thinking what we can do to have results a year from now, two years, five years from now, because the strengths of the free world was always to build institutions. Dictators and terrorists are very good in playing the tactical games.

They can throw the pieces around the board, and they don't care about strategy because they have to survive today. Democracies should rely on institutions that will lust over the tenure of president of prime minister. So actually, of course, one of the criticisms of democracy going back literally thousands of years is that actually there is an inconsistency. Ancient historian Thucydides during the war between Athens and Sparta, one of the examples that he, uses was that a ship was sent to kill everyone in a town on the Turkish coast now, as we think it was. And then everybody felt bad two days later. And then there was another speech and said, you know, we really shouldn't kill all of them

in the women and children. They had to send another boat out to try to catch them. The moral being that democracies change their minds, there is an inconsistency, and yes, there's a constitution to try to guide, right, but people aren't necessarily, they don't always want the same things. Yes, but that's why democracy should rely sort of on long-term strategy. Because in a short term, democracy could lose. Because dictator doesn't have to ask for second opinion.

He doesn't care about press. He doesn't have a parliament to be advised. He doesn't have a constitutional court to constrain his actions. But long term, the strong institutions, they provide a solid base to win all were non-democratic regimes. So in other words, going backwards, you thought and see the Soviet unions collapse. Did you see bad as an inevitable? It's not bad.

It's like, you know, it's a cycle, yes. But, you know, it's many things are being repeated. And that's why it's very important to understand the natural enemy. It's this, it's, Putin was very clear from the very beginning of his rise. Even before he became president in 1999, as yet a prime minister appointed by Boris Yeltsin, he met his former KGB colleagues in the headquarters. headquarter in Lubyanka, KGB headquarters. And he said, once KGB, always KGB.

That's Putin. And the first thing he did as a president of Russia, he restored the Soviet anthem. That was a, and it's, you may call it a Freudian message. That's what I wanted to do if given the chance. And he kept repeating, repeated it many times. The collapse of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th century.

So you had all the signs on the wall, but many people didn't want to read And some even now are trying to sort of find excuses. They, again, Putin, we needed friends in the beginning of his presidency when he was weak. But after he consolidated power, he needs enemies. And so that's why the confrontation with Putin is inevitable as long as he stays in the office. There's another school of thought, and this may be a Western-only school of thought, which is that Russia wants a strong leader and that Putin is inevitable in order to come out of the democratic mess.

But you don't see it that way. Look, I'm happy to discuss, you know, theories. But unfortunately for the proponents of this theory, you know, it has been refuted profoundly, not just, you know, in one country but around the world. So North Korea, South Korea, same people, you know, not even cousins, but brothers and sisters. You have a gulag in the north. And you have, you know, vibrant economy, market economy, and stable democracy in the South. China and Taiwan, same people.

people. So you have Taiwan, which is democracy, again, market economy, and, you know, it's, by the way, Rocky Island with no resources. I can, of course, mention East Germany, West Germany. But the best one is actually Russia and Ukraine. Because it's some kind of misunderstanding that it's a war between Ukrainian and Russians. As a matter of fact, most of Ukrainians soldiers fighting Putin's invading forces are ethnic Russians. And you basically looking at the same people, they see, Russian people, leaving on one side of the border, saying Belgarit on the Russian side, or Harikov in Ukrainian side. There are 200 miles between them.

There was no border in the Soviet Union. There was very technical and irrelevant border after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Basically same people, same culture, same language, and the fighting on opposite sides. So for me, it's not about ethnicity, it's not about race, it's not about religion. It's very much about conditions where people leave in. And Ukrainians since 1994 lived in a different country because the first Ukrainian president, Lély the Kravchuk lost elections. Ukrainians experienced a peaceful transition of power.

Unfortunately, it didn't happen in Russia. And we yet have to sort of move in this direction. And I hope that, you know, Ukraine actually will, as the Kyiv's Russia a thousand years ago, will lead the way for Russia into Europe. Okay, so that actually brings me to just a final question. What do you think might cause a positive change? Do you see anything out there on the horizon that might cause positive change? Look, I think the change is inevitable, but I would not call it a positive change,

because Russia will be experiencing a very turbulent period of transition. It will be violent. And for those who say, oh, because, you know, it's so dangerous, let's keep Putin in power. It's wrong assumption because longer he stays in power, sort of more turmoil of violence we'll see in the future. Because every day he stays in Kremlin, you know, he keeps destroying. what is the left of civil society and horizontal ties between Russian citizens. What will ignite the Chinese change and what will lead to the demise of Putin's regime, it will be a geopolitical disaster.

Economy is in terrible shape in Russia, and the regime is staying afloat because they succeeded in convincing Russians that Putin had to sacrifice Russian economy for some big geopolitical victories. I don't think it will last now. I read every day, you know, everything that is published in Russia, and it seems to to me that in 2016 already we could see, you know, some changes. And whether it's this year, maybe it's next year, but soon, you know, when people realize that, you know, they have been forced to sacrifice everything for illusions, for sort of

criminal acts of a paranoid dictator, I think Russia will move in the new era, but again, it will be a very turbulent period, and I hope Russia can survive as a state in its current borders, though I would be so optimistic. Gary Kasparov, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a terrific conversation. It's great to be here. Let's stop next time. When we'll see spring on the horizon?

Next time on War College. And I think often people, you know, they see the rise of Russia and think, oh, well, hell, this is a source of concern. But actually you need to think, well, you know, where the Russians are now is probably where the USA was in, I don't know, 1995. Thank you.