The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Is Russia Weaker Than We Think?

Episode Date: April 24, 2025

Russia, you will often hear, poses a threat to the West, the world order, and democracy. Yet it has a smaller economy than Italy and ... Canada. It also has a shrinking population. There are fewer people living in Russia today than in 1991 during the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, is Russia really that powerful? Is it a waning power coasting on the nostalgia of the Cold War? Or a power that punches well above its economic weight?See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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It's also a story about a system that is supposed to protect patients. From TVO Podcasts, I'm Krisha Collier, and this is The Oath. Subscribe today, wherever you listen. Russia, you will often hear, poses a threat to the West, the world order, and democracy. Yet it has a smaller economy than Italy and Canada.

It also has a shrinking population. There are fewer people living in Russia today than in 1991, during the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, is Russia really all that powerful? Is it a waning power coasting on the nostalgia of the Cold War? Or a power that punches well above its economic weight? Let's get into that with, in Stanford, California, Catherine Stoner, Professor of Political Science and the Mosbacher Director of the Center on Democracy,

Development and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She's also author of Russia Resurrected, Its Power and Purpose in a New Global Order. In Washington DC, Angela Stent, Director of the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies at Georgetown University and author of Putin's World, Russia Against the West and With the Rest. And with us here in studio, Seva Gnitsky, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto and author of Aftershocks, Great Powers and Domestic Reforms in the 20th Century.

Great to have you three with us here on TVO tonight. And I want to set up this discussion by playing, or first let's do this quote from the NATO Deputy Secretary General, at least a former one, Alessandro Minuto Rizzo, from March 2nd, 2025, in which he says, we sometimes confuse Russia with the Soviet Union. Russia is not the Soviet Union. It is much less than that. In Ukraine, after three years, they have gained 18% of the territory. That is not much for a superpower they claim to be.

And let's follow up with Barack Obama back in 2014, shortly after Russia invaded Crimea. Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbors not out of strength but out of weakness. The fact that Russia felt compelled to go in militarily and lay bare these violations of international law indicates less influence, not more. Angela Stantz start us off. Is Russia weaker than we think? So Russia has always only been able to be a great power or even a superpower because of its military prowess.

In the 19th century, the conventional military, in the 20th century, as one of the two nuclear superpowers, it has always been economically backward, certainly compared to the West. But it is able to project power because, not only because of its military might, but because of the way it interacts with other countries in the world. It is a disrupter. It behaves quite brutally toward its neighbors. It bullies other countries. And therefore, it projects greater strength than it really has.

But because of that, it is able and has been able to punch above its weight for quite a long time, and particularly under Vladimir Putin. Katharine Stoner, you heard President Obama call Russia a regional power a decade ago. If that was true back then, how would you describe Russia today? So it's definitely not a regional power. And I think that Obama did precisely nothing to stop Russia from taking Crimea as he was making that statement. Right? Crimea still belongs to Russia.

And, you know, today we hear that the plan, the US plan under President Trump is to basically recognize Russia's ownership of Crimea. So power is relative and Russia gets what we're willing to give up from the United States as well. I don't know that we've underestimated Russian power. I think we've kind of misunderstood the sources of power and also the will to use what Russia has under Vladimir Putin. So I think power is multi-dimensional. You just named, you know, you talked about its economic power, Angela, about its military power, and certainly, you know, that's a large part of why we haven't engaged Russia directly

over Ukraine is its nuclear weapons and the possibility and belief that under Vladimir Putin, who's now basically a dictator, is, you know, he's willing to use that. So I think we've misunderstood it and at times therefore underestimated what Russia's willing to do, especially under Vladimir Putin. Seva, I want to give a showbiz analogy for you. You know the actor Joe Pesci. Okay, Joe Pesci from Goodfellas, from Casino.

He's a guy who's not the biggest guy on the block, but he sure acts tough. And if you turn your back on him, he's gonna take out his ballpoint pen and stab you in the neck. Is that Russia today? Well, I think in some ways Russia does feel like it has to overcompensate for its economic weakness,

I suppose, in the same way that Joe Pesci. But Russia does have certain things that give it power, that make it a great power. It has a nuclear stockpile and it's willing to remind people about it. It has geographic leverage just through its size. It has institutional power through the UN vote and most importantly it has its army and it's willing to use its army and bear costs. So maybe the analogy is not the UN vote and most importantly it has its army and it's willing to use its army and bear costs. So maybe the analogy is not Joe Pesci but Liam Neeson. This is not the wealthiest guy but he has a particular set of skills and- But he's a good guy.

Yes, that's right. So maybe that makes Russia too sympathetic. The evil version of Liam Neeson, right? But the point is that Russia is a threat precisely because its weakness undermines its geopolitical pursuit which is the pursuit of primacy and the pursuit of great power status. And that is a failed pursuit, I would say, but it is why Russia has become central to everything going on today. Catherine, do you like the Joe Pesci analogy?

That's not a bad one, although I'd make Joe Pesci taller because again, I think we're looking at the wrong things when we just talk about economic or military power alone Um, I like rodney dangerfield for uh vladimir putin Um, you know the comedian who always said I can't get no respect and and I think that's a lot of What russia today is after and we see putin trying to lead sort of a conservative nationalist international movement these days as well. So I think he thinks of Russia as a great power and frankly most Russians when asked

to think of Russia as a great power. So they have something different in mind I think than maybe we do. Angela, maybe you could compare and contrast sort of the way Russia, then the Soviet Union, and the United States kind of divided up the world into spheres of influence after World War II at Yalta with today, where we have two strong men in power, if you like, and President Trump and President Putin, and whether they are in effect replicating that from all those years ago today. And in fact, replicating that from all those years ago today. So Putin in 2015 famously at the United Nations said,

the Yalta system was very good. It kept the peace for a long time. And this is the kind of world order that we should move towards. And he was, of course, talking about the Yalta meeting where Churchill and Roosevelt and Stalin essentially divided the world into spheres of influence. And this has been his worldview for a long time. And one of his goals since he became president 25 years ago is to push back against U.S. domination of the international system, which was really the case after the collapse of

the Soviet Union, and restore something where Russia had a much bigger role. Now, Putin has said in the past, there are really only three fully sovereign countries in the world, Russia, China and the United States. All other countries have limited sovereignty. You know, Ukraine, as Russia's neighbors, is smaller and should listen to what Russia tells it to do, should be subordinate to it. And for the first time, certainly since the collapse of the Soviet Union, we have a US president who appears to share that view, whereas all the previous other ones had a

very different attitude towards the drivers of world politics. And I think Donald Trump is quite willing to accept the idea that allies, particularly the European allies, are a drain on the country that they exploit you. He's not interested in alliances. He talks about great power competition, great power politics. And he, I think, would agree with Putin that the way going forward is indeed to divide the world into spheres of influence. This time it would be a tripartite yalta, because China would also have its sphere of influence. This time it would be a tripartite yalta because China would also have its sphere of influence, that you don't interfere in those spheres of influence, in other people's spheres of influence, but you dominate your own. And of course he includes

in this Canada, as we've seen, Greenland, the Panama Canal. So I think this is a unique moment certainly in Western history where you have a country, the United States, that for 80 years had built up a system, a system of alliances that brought prosperity and security to much of the world, now unraveling its own very successful system, and in essence, adopting a worldview that's that of a former superpower, a would-be global great power, Russia, which of course runs a very repressive domestic system. Let me get Catherine and then Seva to weigh in. And again, I'm going to use the Shobha's analogy

here because on the one hand, there are lots of people who think that Donald Trump is Putin's lapdog. On the other hand, there are others who say that Donald Trump's been informed on foreign policy by basically watching movies about the Cold War in the 1980s and 90s. And I wonder whether, Catherine, do you first? We are overestimating Russia's power because

Donald Trump thinks we're back in a time of 30 or 40 years ago. I think Donald Trump thinks we're back in a time of a hundred years ago, maybe even more with his, with his tariff war and his, his wanting to name things after President McKinley. And then his sort of view, I would agree with Angela, of trying to carve the world up into alliances. Yeah, I also think that, yeah, Donald Trump in general is probably stuck in the 1980s. But I think the real thing is he seems to think

that foreign relations are conducted on the basis of the personal relationships with leaders. And he thinks, and we have lots of quotes, that Putin is a genius, and he admires how strong he is and obviously admires the degree to which he controls his national politics and silences his critics. So we saw this before with Trump. He is enthralled with Putin. And so he equates Putin's sort of projection of his own personal strength, and certainly

has a great deal of control over his own country right now, which we can talk about as a source of power, too, and the will to flout international rules. And when you see the world the way that they do as great powers fighting one another and having dominion over weaker powers, pardon me, Trump once used a terrible insult for countries that he thought were sort of weaker and nobody knows where they are. And so I think they share a worldview in that respect as well, although they have rather different personal stories. Seva, how about you on that? Yeah, I think there is something about Trump being stuck in the 80s having this vision of the world of

Rocky versus Ivan Drago view of international politics. We're really doing this showbiz thing today. Yes, we are. But I agree with Catherine. I think he also just simply has a personal affinity for Putin. He complements him regularly. And I think he equates Putin's strength as a ruler with Russian national strength, which leads him to overlook some of Russia's structural weaknesses. Not to mention also, I think Trump's view of Russia may resonate with his base, Russia

as this unwoke alternative to the liberal order, which leads him to inflate its importance somewhat. Let's follow up. We're going from, we'll talk from hard power to soft power. And to that end, let's talk disinformation. You know there have been so many allegations that Trump won the first time because of Russian disinformation that helped him win and helped hurt Hillary Clinton at the time. What's your view on whether or not

those attempts by Russia to disinform and therefore subvert Western democracies is on the level? Yeah, well, I've said and written for years that I think focusing on Russian disinformation is kind of abstracting away from the problem or distracting from the problem. It allows the West to avoid examining its own internal issues when all you have to do is say, oh, there's a shadowy outside forces that are destroying our

innocent democracy. I think that's wrong. A lot of disinformation is homegrown. But that said, it costs very little for Russia to pump out massive amounts of disinformation to pay influencers, including here in Canada, we had a scandal of Russian propaganda influencers. So it has not been punished for it.

It will continue doing it. And therefore, we should not dismiss it entirely. I don't think we should use it as an excuse for things that are wrong internally. But I think, and therefore should not overhype it. But I don't think we should use it as an excuse for things that are wrong internally, but I don't, I think, and therefore should not overhype it, but I don't think we should dismiss it entirely. Angela, what's your view on how powerful Russia's attempts to disinform Western democracies and the effect it's having?

So I think it's important to state, as my colleagues have, that the Russian propaganda and disinformation falls on fertile soil, both in Western countries and in much of the global South. So Putin presents Russia, as was already mentioned, as the leader of a conservative international, as an upholder of traditional family values. Putin has really honed in on the culture wars in Western countries, particularly, and has said that Russia is the only true Christian country. Western Christianity has lost its way and then invading against what he calls the international LGBT movement. In other words, again, weighing in on all of these culture wars and putting forward Russia

as a bastion of traditional values. And in fact, the MAGA supporters of Donald Trump in the United States, they love Russia because of this. Russia's even now created some settlements for people, disillusioned people in the West who want to, again, who favor traditional family values, who can actually go and live in Russia. And some people have actually done that. But Putin also uses the same ideas to appeal to countries in the global south, again, against wokeness, but then also setting Russia up, putting Russia forward as the leader of anti imperialism against the United States. So I'm not sure that we really have exaggerated Russia's role here.

Donald Trump won in 2016 not because of Russian propaganda or disinformation, but the Russians very cleverly know how to feed into the discontent in many societies with elites, Western societies at least, with elites, with wokeness and things like that. We shouldn't underestimate it. And then if you include in that, as Seville was saying, paying people, having informants,

using corrupt networks to influence. I mean, if you look at what happened in Brexit, it now turns out that Russian money and Russian influences were quite active in persuading parts of the population to vote for Brexit. So we should not underestimate them. They've been doing this for hundreds of years. They're very good at this kind of stuff, and we have to be very vigilant about it. And there are large numbers of people all around the world who believe the Russian narrative, for instance, of what happened in Ukraine and that it's all the West's fault. And, you know, they're going to continue doing this.

Well, you mentioned Ukraine. So let's pick up the story there. And Catherine, we do need to talk about this immoral, unjust war that started three years ago by Russia invading Ukraine at enormous cost to Russia itself. 800,000 killed and wounded Russians alone in this war. They've captured less than 20% of Ukrainian territory for all their efforts. What do you believe this war has revealed about Russia's actual military capability? Yeah, so I think, Stonis, a couple of things. Initially, I think we all expected a lot more of the Russian military because on paper it is the most powerful military in Europe, certainly, and should have been able to easily overpower the Ukrainian military. I think though that a couple of things happened. One is that Putin had

fed his own misinformation, was fed to him by the FSB who had that as their internal security service, sort of like the combination of CIA and FBI that told him Zelensky was weak, that Ukrainians would lay down their arms and wanted to be liberated by Russians, and that the population and military would fold and welcome them. And of course, that was wrong. We've also made mistakes from the United on the US end. We can remember the war in Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld assuring George Bush that the Iraqis would welcome us with roses.

And this, of course, didn't happen in Iraq and it didn't happen in Ukraine either. So I think that's one thing. The Ukrainians were more ready. And I would say that it was a, that really it's a full invasion, right? So the Ukrainians knew the Russians would be back once we basically did nothing in 2014 when they seized Crimea. So for all of Obama saying, you know, it's a weak regional power threatening its neighbors out of weakness, not strength.

Well, we did precisely nothing to Russia after that 2014. And so they were led to believe they could do it again. And I could point to also the invasion and continued occupation of parts of independent Georgia. So what happened on the Russian side? Well, any big, this is where we get to some internal weakness in Russia. Bureaucracy in Russia is riddled with corruption.

And the military is the biggest bureaucracy in the Russian state. And so I think what we saw there was a lack of preparation, a lack of equipment due to the corruption within the Russian military as well. They've learned, though, over the last three years of war. And so they're starting to do a little bit better. But as you said, you know, they still only have 20% of Ukrainian territory, which is what they had two years ago in 2022. So at this rate, it would take about a hundred years to take all of Ukraine, if that's the goal. In which case, Sevin, as you look at Russia today, does it seem to be a stronger or weaker country after three years of war?

Well, I think as a country, it's undoubtedly weaker. You already mentioned the hundreds of thousands of casualties, the equipment losses, the economic strain, the isolation, not to mention the social strain inside Russia of all these people coming back into society after fighting. So it's been a disaster for the country in many ways. But as a regime, Putin's regime has actually grown stronger, I would argue, as a result of the war. He's tightened control over the oligarchs,

he's tightened control over the media. There's massive propaganda campaigns now. Basically the entire country has been mobilized for war. And Putin is as in control as he has been. Even Prigorshin's failed mutiny attempt last year did not dislodge him, in fact allowed Putin to consolidate his control. So at least for the foreseeable future,

he seems to be here to stay. How did that work out for the man whose name I can't pronounce, but you just did so well? For Prigorshin, it did not work out so well. He got blown up out of the sky. The surprising thing is he thought Putin was going to let him get away with it. Let me do a quick follow up with you, which is about a decade ago,

I was in Moscow for a little while. And somebody said to me something I never forgot, which is you people in the West just don't understand how much suffering Russians are prepared to put up with. And that helps, obviously, Putin do what he wants to do. True or false? Yeah, I don't want to generalize about Russian people as a whole. I think that's impossible to do. But I think there is a segment of society that is willing to sacrifice things

if it means Russia gets to be a great power again. There's a great book by Svetlana Alexeyevich, a Nobel Prize winner, Second Hand Time, which is about Soviet nostalgia. And she talks to a woman who pines for those days again and she says, I would rather live in a great power than a supermarket. And I think that does reflect sentiment among Russian people. We're willing to put up with privation if it means we have a mission. Now why couldn't you have both? That's my question. Why not have a great power in a supermarket? But I think this mentality does help Putin.

It benefits him that people are willing to tolerate these things if it means they have a sense of a mission. Catherine, what do you conclude about the relative strength of Russia today in terms of its ability over the next, say, five years to be a military threat beyond Ukraine to other countries in Europe as well? Yes, so you know, power can be taken and power can be given. And so Europeans have actually given in terms of conventional power, Russia quite a lot,

even though its economy, as you mentioned, is much smaller than the European unions put together or even most individuals, be it Germany's, for example, or France. The Russian military far exceeds, frankly, I think probably at this point, the Ukrainian military far exceeds the capabilities of almost every country in Europe. So it is, I think the reason that is one of the reasons that Europe looks at this very differently than the United States. Russia could be a military threat there, but it is also a threat, as Angela mentioned, in terms of misinformation and interference in important elections and politics. It's also a threat in terms of lending support,

as we've seen in France, to populist right-wing parties. And Russia's goal there has been under Putin for two decades to break up the European Union, because that's better for Russia. So, you know, it's dangerous for Europe. And that's why I think they have a very different perspective than the Trump administration, to be sure on this. Angela, I'll read this quote to you and then get you to follow up. Last year, the NATO secretary general, Mark Rutte, said, we are not ready for what is coming our way in four to five years, referring to Russia and its military capabilities.

What does he mean? Well, I think what he means is if Russia believes that it has prevailed so far in Ukraine, and frankly, if you look at what's happening in negotiations to end the Ukraine war and in what President Trump and his officials have been proposing and what Russia wants. Russia may come out of this much better than maybe one would have thought before. And I think what Ruta was meaning is that as long as Putin's in power, or someone like Putin, with this drive to overcome the collapse of the Soviet Union, restore Russia as a great power. And even if you look at the draft treaties that were presented to NATO and the United States in December of 21, to roll back NATO to where it was before the first enlargement in 1999, that these are Russia's ambitions and goals.

And that even if, for instance, there is a ceasefire now, and there's some temporary, at least, ending to the war, Russia's not going to give up these goals to subjugate Ukraine, to have a pro-Russian government there. And then possibly, and then also, I think, it's already interfering in weaker countries like Moldova, other former Soviet states, but to have its eyes on testing whether NATO was Article 5 would still be valid, were it really to threaten one of the Baltic states or even Poland. So I think that's what I think what Mark Redder was referring to is that for too long, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, one assumed that the new Russian Federation

would get on with improving its own economy, with developments without seeking to restore what it lost in 1991. And I think one cannot assume that that's what at least the current people in the Kremlin believe. Down to our last few minutes here. Let me get one more item on the table for discussion here. And Seb, I'll go to you first on this. We've talked about Russia's military power, its nuclear capabilities, its hard power. Does Russia have soft power today, as in cultural influence? Well, it's a funny question because the typical answer is no. And I think that's partly right in the sense that nobody wants to live like Russia,

nobody wants to emulate Russia's regime. But look at the US population. Look at during the Cold War, for example, large portions of the US left saw Russia as this something to admire, and they were willing to overlook many of its problems. Today, large portions of the right are doing the same thing, that they see Russia as this counterweight

and that they're willing to overlook many of its problems in order to feel like there is a counterweight to the US. So in that sense, Russia does have soft power, a surprising amount of soft power. If you can turn your rivals into believing or projecting their greatest beliefs or desires onto you. I don't know how Russia does it, but it has been able to do it during the Cold War and today.

And Steve, that is a form of soft power, I think, and we should not underestimate that. Catherine, what's your view on that? Oh, I think it's greatly enhanced its soft power. And in part, again, you know, the United States has been very helpful in that. But Putin is now, and it's somewhat ironic, given that he himself doesn't live a sort of traditional conservative Christian life personally. But he certainly has tried to present Russia

as really the tip of the spear in defending conservative Christian values and finds people in other parts of the spear in defending conservative Christian values and, you know, finds people in other parts of the world, the global South, very open to this message he's in his sense preaching to the converted who are pushing back in the culture wars, who didn't ever want to, for example, in the Middle East or in parts of sub-Saharan Africa embrace this sort of liberal view of homosexuality and the like. And so he does actually, here I disagree just a tiny bit with Seva, he does actually appeal to, or maybe I'm agreeing with you, I think you might've said the Christian right here, some parts of the Christian right here in the United States. I have a little paper on that.

But he appeals to a lot of other populations, even in Latin American, who are much more Christian and also in places where the United States, for example, won't do business. And this is another part of soft power, right? Is loan forgiveness or helping to market your blood diamonds or providing infrastructure alongside China in parts of the global south. So, you know, I think actually in some ways, especially because the United States is helping along and withdrawing things like, you know, our PEPFAR

and the destruction of USAID, Russia and frankly China are going to enhance their soft power in much of the global south. Angela Lee, you get the last 30 seconds to put a bow on it. Yes, I think Russia has increased its soft power since the start of the war in Ukraine. You know, RT on Espanol, you know, Russian state controlled media, is the fastest growing and most popular media in much of Latin America. So particularly in the global south, countries that have always been wary of the United States, Russia has succeeded in harnessing this kind of anti-imperialist. Russia is the supporter of national liberation movements of the

global south it succeeded quite well there and I think as Catherine alluded to as the US cuts back you know we close down voice of America we close down these programs that have helped Africans and others in dealing with HIV this will I believe only enhance Russia's soft power. I can't thank the three of you enough for a great discussion here on TVO tonight. Catherine Stoner from Stanford University, Seva Gunetsky, the University of Toronto, Angela Stent, Georgetown University. Thanks so much to the three of you. We're really grateful for your time. Thank you. Thank you.