Episode Notes:

On this episode of the Russia Contingency, Mike is joined by Sergey Radchenko, the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Mike and Sergey discussed the war in Ukraine from a historical perspective; Russia's place in the world; and the history of reform and consolidation after military defeats.

The Russia Contingency is a bi-weekly podcast featuring in-depth analysis of Russia's military power and the war in Ukraine.

Episode Transcript:

Michael Kofman: So welcome back to another episode of The Russia Contingency. I am Michael Kofman, and today I have a special guest and longtime friend, Sergey Radchenko. I'm actually visiting him at Johns Hopkins SAIS Bologna thanks to his invitation. Sergey, maybe take a second to introduce yourself.

Sergey Radchenko: Hi, I'm Sergey Radchenko. I'm a professor here in SAIS Bologna and very happy, I'm very happy to see Mike Kofman visit me here in Europe. It's a great opportunity, a good opportunity for old friends to get together and talk about Russia.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, thanks for having me here. So Sergey, you and I have been talking for quite a long time before this war, during this war, exchanging views on the run-up to it as to whether or not it would even happen. And since it's been quite a few months, in fact, in some respects it might even feel like it's been ages since this war began, for those of us who've been following it, I want to take advantage of your historical knowledge, you're frankly one of the leading historians in the field, to get your perspective on what you think the implications of this war might be for Russia. Now, I'll start by using what I think are often helpful mental tools, which is analogies. All analogies are imperfect because you often sort of strip away the parts of the history and the context you don't like for the analogy that you want to use, but are there historical parallels that are useful to think about in this experience and in what we're seeing right now in this war?

Sergey Radchenko: Well, Russia has fought many wars through its long history and actually you can go back to history and it's so rich that you can find any evidence to back any argument that you want to make. So I'm with you on the limitations of analogies and we can talk about, for example, the Crimean War from 1853 to 1856. The Russo-Japanese War is an interesting example. Those are wars that Russia lost. The Winter War of 1939, 1940. The Afghanistan War when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Again, those are wars that Russia lost to an extent. I would say with the Winter War, it's more complicated.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, I'd say Winter War, technically Russia probably won the war.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, yes.

Michael Kofman: But it was a pyrrhic victory.

Sergey Radchenko: It's a pyrrhic victory. A lot of people say, "Well, Stalin lost that war." In the end, of course, it was Finland that lost territory. But it is interesting, if you think back about 100, 150 years of Russian history, that if you're, for example, a Russian living in Russia, the example that the state wants you to think about, that the Kremlin wants you to think about, is the Second World War. Russia won it, the Soviet Union won it, but actually there were so many wars that Russia lost in the Soviet Union.

Michael Kofman: Sure. And the thing about great powers historically, and I've always seen Russia as a relatively weak great power, it has these sort of peaks and valleys in its history. And people often remember sort of the peaks to bright points or certainly Russian elites do, right?

Sergey Radchenko: Sure.

Michael Kofman: They remember their part of the coalitions in the Napoleonic Wars.

Sergey Radchenko: Yes.

Michael Kofman: They remember their part-

Sergey Radchenko: 1812, 1845, great moments, but nobody remembers all those wars that Russia lost.

Michael Kofman: Right. And they remember their part of World War II, specifically the post-1941 part of the war.

Sergey Radchenko: Exactly.

Michael Kofman: Not the 1939 to '41 part.

Sergey Radchenko: Yes, yes. Well, or for this matter, the first month of war after Hitler invaded. Those were also extremely difficult for Russia, but they did come back and they did defeat Nazi Germany. And that is a part of the great reality and the great historical myth upon which the Russians today, the Russian government today, builds its legitimate narrative that, "We prevailed then and we can still prevail." But the question is, how different is this war in Ukraine from previous wars? I think that this war in Ukraine actually has more in common with the wars that Russia lost, i.e., like the Russo-Japanese War of 1904, 1905, for example, rather than to the Great Patriotic War, 1941 to ’45.

Michael Kofman: One way to look at it, at least from my point of view, is that this could end up being a series of wars. In fact, I've increasingly taken the pessimistic view that there's a good chance the way this war ends, especially if it ends relatively early, there's some folks who want to see negotiations have their way, at least right now, that it's only going to lead to some sort of unhappy, indeterminate peace, which will yield another war. In fact, this war is fundamentally a continuation war of the initial Russian invasion in 2014.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, let me challenge you on this. People do say this. People do say that, for example, if we have a ceasefire, then this will just merely allow Putin to rebuild his forces and prepare for new aggression against Ukraine. But one thing that I don't understand is suppose the Russians are pushed out of Ukraine, and that's of course still pie in the sky, but let's say the Ukrainian forces continue their offensive and are successful and push them out all the way to the lines of 2014. What prevents Russia then from coming back again and attacking Ukraine again? I don't see the logic here.

Michael Kofman: So technically nothing. The difference between these outcomes is I think twofold. First, if Russia's still in Ukraine, it's still occupying significant parts of Ukraine, I think sometimes we're also often talking about ideals that are Russia's pushed completely out of Ukraine, what does that mean? Does that include Crimea or not, for example?

Sergey Radchenko: Well, that's a big question. Yeah.

Michael Kofman: But let's put that aside, but let's not argue over small details, let's focus on a big-picture argument, which is if Russia still occupies significant parts of Ukraine, then future leaders are essentially committed to an enduring conflict of some sort with Ukraine, because you can't imagine Ukraine really making a peace on these terms, so at the best you're going to get is a ceasefire. Now, you can look at long term and you say, "Hey, some ceasefires, like say the resolution of the Korean War, they could last for decades." I think the second challenge I would make is that there are two conversations taking place about the prospect of negotiations and the ceasefire.

There's a conversation folks like me are having when they're looking only about six months out. That is, if there's a ceasefire right now, Russia rebuilds, reconstitutes forces, and by this, I mean in the next six months, not in the next 20 years, okay? It's two different timelines that are being discussed. And then renews the war because the Russian military is the most vulnerable right now. A second conversation is by folks who imagine there's a ceasefire and it lasts for some years, and then they say, "Well, but the West could substantially aid Ukraine and arm it so that it could deter a future Russian invasion. So why not?”

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah, and those are valid issues to discuss. Since you touched on the Korean War, this is also an interesting analogy, and I forget to mention it in the series of wars, of course, that Russia fought. I mean, in that case, the Soviet Union was not really directly involved except for providing some air support and some advisors. But it is interesting to think about the Korean War as an analogy for the current conflict. If you remember where it began, it began in June 1950 with the North Korean invasion, which was immediately successful, but then they kind of ran into difficulties. And obviously there was the Incheon landing by the U.S. forces, which led almost to North Korean complete collapse at which point the Chinese intervened at the end of 1950. But what happened then after a few months of fighting is you had by approximately the spring, after the Chinese offensive failed, you have basically stalemate that develops in Korea.

What's striking about the situation is that it took two years of further fighting, further destruction before an actual ceasefire was arranged. So that is an interesting, and worrying in many ways, worrying analogy of what might happen if the Ukrainians continue and the Russians also are able to stabilize their front lines, perhaps push back a little bit. But if the front lines stabilize, it doesn't necessarily mean that we'll have a ceasefire, but we could eventually have a ceasefire. And then of course, you're right to think about the long term, what happens then if let's say Putin leaves the scene, his successors come to power? Are they going to continue this? Are they going to be willing to negotiate? If the Korean War is an analogy, then certainly in 1953 after Stalin's death, the new Soviet leadership very quickly moved to negotiate on the question of Korea.

Michael Kofman: Let me bring up a different one. What if the war ends and following its ending, we have the problem of the fact that it's really up to the loser of a war to concede defeat? Even if they've visibly lost on the battlefield, they can simply not admit defeat, they can keep it going. You have cases like the series of Arab-Israeli wars. The 1967 war, Israel wins decisively and what follows that is the Israeli-Egyptian war of attrition for the next three years, which is an undeclared war that's still ongoing.

Sergey Radchenko: Absolutely. And Sadat is determined to make a comeback, declares the year of decision. Ultimately, obviously declares a war in Israel in 1973, the Yom Kippur War. So yeah, that is certainly also an interesting analogy. Even though if Russia is pushed out, you could still have this kind of sense of revanche, more a sense of irredentism, or just this desire to come back and still strike at what's ours, so to speak, i.e., the territory that they proclaimed as theirs. So that is still a very interesting possibility.

I mean, the real question is what are the Russian elites thinking? Those people around Putin. Do they share his vision of the world? Do they share his absolute determination to hold onto bits and pieces of Ukraine, if not completely hold Ukraine for a subservient state? Or do they think, "Okay, we are in this for a while because we don't see any other options, but let's say if this guy's out of the way, whether he drops dead or something happens to him, are we still going to insist on this program of confrontation with the West and war over Ukraine, or are we going to arrive at a reasonable compromise like the Soviets did in the Korean War in 1953?”

Michael Kofman: Yeah. And there was an interesting War On The Rocks article recently, the author's name escapes me right now, and was discussing the fact that oftentimes after leaders change when a leader begins a war or launches a conflict, we assume that the next leader, if it's a misadventure, might quickly seek an end to it. But that's not really true, that actually in a lot of cases, change in leadership doesn't automatically yield peace. Although in the case of Russia and the Soviet Union, I think you can come up with a fair number of examples of when a change in leadership did produce a change in approach to the war.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, here's one example of Gorbachev. We have the invasion of Afghanistan, December 1979. The Soviet leaders recognized pretty quickly that it was a strategic mistake on their part to do that, and yet they continue fighting, they continue supporting Babrak Karmal, their puppet ruler in Afghanistan until Gorbachev comes around. And he very quickly states that this is a bleeding wound and we have to get out. It's a serious problem for Gorbachev. And he immediately begins, but even with Gorbachev, and this is kind of remarkable as well, I mean, think about Gorbachev, this starry-eyed, liberal idealist, etc., etc., as he's known in the West, it took him, well, four years until February 1989, before the final Soviet forces left Afghanistan. What was he doing before then from March 1985 until '89? Well, he was trying to fix the situation, he was trying to prop up Najibullah. I mean, obviously he replaced Babrak Karmal with somebody who was seen as more effective.

He was trying some kind of program of national reconciliation or God knows what, until he finally said, "Okay, that's enough." And even at the last 11th hour, people like Shevardnadze were still telling him, "We need to go there and still support our clients." And Gorbachev finally said, "No, we can't." And so we had the Soviet withdrawal that was effected, and the Soviets left Afghanistan. But even with a person like Gorbachev, who immediately changed the Soviet course, it still took years before final disengagement. And that also is an interesting historical analogy and interesting historical lesson.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, absolutely. And you have several others. So in World War I, you have de facto two revolutions on the new kind of-

Sergey Radchenko: The Bolsheviks basically tried to continue the war against the Germans for a time, or Trotsky's position of no war, no peace.

Michael Kofman: No war, no peace. Yeah. Which was a disastrous position and ended up in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So that is an interesting example. Sometimes when you have a change of leadership, you actually have an intensification of war. And the good example of this is the Soviet involvement in the Vietnam War after Khrushchev was ousted in October 1964, the new Soviet leadership, Leonid Brezhnev and Kosygin actually reasserted Soviet commitment to North Vietnam, started supporting them a lot, on a much greater scale because they thought it was important for their standing, their legitimacy, internal legitimacy, international legitimacy, even though they did not necessarily agree with what the North Vietnamese were doing. So like I said, change of leadership. And as you said, actually change of leadership does not necessarily produce an immediate change of policy, although sometimes it does.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, I would joke to say it's contagious, but the truth is that the history of it can lead you to different conclusions. But at the very least, my point in all of this is that it's clear that those folks who hope that if there is a change of leadership or regime change in Russia, that it will lead to a rather quick end of the war. The short answer is that it's not necessarily so.

Sergey Radchenko: It's not necessarily so, but there's a group of people, I won't name names necessarily, but who hope for a change of leadership and who hope that this is followed by some kind of civil strife in Russia, i.e., the Russians will be so preoccupied with their domestic problems that they will just forget about Ukraine.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, but this has happened before. That's how the Soviet Union was created, which leads me to Oscar Wilde quote of, "There are two great tragedies in life. The first one's not getting what you want, and the second one is getting it.”

Sergey Radchenko: Ah, exactly. Exactly. So we have to be very careful here about what we are wishing for. Obviously the scenario of Russia falling apart and into some kind of civil strife, by the way, I don't think it's a completely unrealistic scenario given just how explosive the situation is in the Caucasus, for example. A weakening of Russia could result in centrifugal tendencies, but there are all kinds of dangers that are attached to this.

Michael Kofman: But at the very least you can already see, I think in some respects resulting from this war, a weakened Russia that's seen clearly by other former Soviet republics as no longer being an arbiter of security in the region, particularly in the Caucasus and in Central Asia, because you've seen a number of countries either take opportunities like Azerbaijan or conflicts are up actually in Central Asia over the course of this year. Because like it or not, Russia does play this role. At the very least, it often sucks the oxygen out of the room in terms of security still in these regions. And so whether or not there's internal strife in Russia, one thing that I think is going to be resulting from this war is there will be increased strife or much-reduced capacity for conflict management.

Sergey Radchenko: In all the periphery in places like the Caucasus. Yeah, absolutely. In places like Central Asia also will allow external actors to come in and do more stuff for better or worse. And we have seen Turkey already play that role between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Chinese are behind the situation very carefully. I would say the Chinese have no real experience of this kind of intervention. They are not getting involved in Central Asia, not because Russia considers that its quote, unquote, "backyard," but because the Chinese themselves really don't have any experience, although they're trying to build it up in places like Tajikistan. But so far they're involved more economically than in kind of provision of security.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, I would say one of the biggest reasons for that is that the West, but specifically the United States, I think from my point view, has always had a very fitful engagement with this part of the world, and I’m kind of writing something about on the subject right now, is that there were two interrelated challenges resulting from the collapse and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Let's say the first one was to deal with the security vacuum in Europe with the aims and ambitions of central and eastern European states with the sort of rapid departure of Soviet influence and Soviet power. And that's one challenge that the U.S. focused on quite a bit and came up with solutions for it.

Sergey Radchenko: And did it successfully in terms of NATO enlargement, etc. I mean, one of the reasons for it in the 1990s was precisely to fill the vacuum because there was a fear that if vacuum continues to persist, you'll have a conflict like in Yugoslavia breaking out in various parts of Eastern Europe, and that was not a very pleasant scenario.

Michael Kofman: Right. But the second challenge I saw, and this is the one that's enduring actually, whatever you may think of NATO enlargement, let's put that conversation aside, although they are heavily interrelated, is the question of Soviet collapse as a process, and the fact that what I think we're seeing over the course of several decades now are fundamentally wars of Soviet succession, and that this is a conflict of Soviet succession and it may well not be the last sort of Ukrainian war. To me, this question of what to do with managing the process of Soviet dissolution has always been a more vexing one.

And in large parts of the Soviet Union, the United States and the other Western countries have had a very fitful involvement. They never were sure that they cared, they never had a model for engagement. They didn't like Russian solutions either since they were principally imperialist in many respects, but they often didn't want to get involved. And if you look on a case-by-case basis, there are quite a few times where it sort of led to the worst of both outcomes in terms of the approach taken. I can think of a couple right off the top of my head.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah. Well, I mean, the United States obviously does not have a model like NATO enlargement for much of what used to be on the Soviet periphery in Central Asia, etc. So Russian departure from there does not necessarily mean that the United States will have the means or the will to actually do something about provision of security or even the knowledge about how to go about those societies. So that is going to be a challenge, and I'm very much with you on this question of how do you manage this disintegration of the Soviet Union that seems to be continuing in many ways 30 years after the official Soviet collapse? That is a big question for our times, and there is no easy answer.

And then of course, a part of the question that we have not yet talked about, which makes this situation particularly dangerous and very different for example, from let's say the 1920s, the early 1920s or the period after the Russian Revolution where you had civil war and everything was coming apart in Russia at that time, Tsarist Russia, it was all terrible, but it was not as terrible as what could happen now because of course of the presence of nuclear weapons. And that is a concern, and that is the reason why President Bush senior was so reluctant, I guess, to endorse what he considered to be toxic nationalism forces in his famous speech in 1991, because he feared that there would be ethnic strife in the USSR. What would that mean for American security? What would that mean for European security?

And we still don't know, so that is the nightmare scenario that nobody knows anything about. So when people are saying, "Okay, let's see if maybe the way out of this conflict is for Russia to fall apart." Yeah, I think you're quite right in the sense that this is certainly one way out of a conflict that could bring about completely unimaginable and very dangerous circumstances.

Michael Kofman: Yeah. To me, it's very much also an issue of misinterpreting history. The first being is the dissolution of the Soviet Union along what looked like relatively clean lines, although there were a number of succession conflicts over who gets to be a state and who doesn’t.

Sergey Radchenko: Sure. You had Tajikistan, you had Georgia, Abkhazia, etc., etc.

Michael Kofman: The second was the successful management of the question of nuclear weapons, which took quite a bit of effort. And to me, sort of the third one was the impression from the 1990s that actually the Soviet Union collapsed and went out with a whimper instead of a bang. And I sort of thought about it, and the more I look back on this period, the more I've come to realize that first of all, it's a much less rosy period than people recall in terms of conflicts and Russian intervention of post-Soviet space.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah. Well, I think this is because our narrative is unduly Western-centered. I mean, I spent the 1990s in Russia, certainly part of the 1990s in Russia, and it certainly was not a rosy period as far as I'm concerned. It was absolutely disastrous, economically disastrous. There was crime, unemployment. God, it was just absolutely atrocious. And by the way, at that time already in the 1990s, you had that emergence of the so-called red brown forces, the forces of revanchism, the communists were aligned sometimes with the far-right people like Zhirinovsky, etc., who were calling for restoration of some Russian empire, Soviet empire. So a lot of the roots of what we're seeing today, of course, go back to the 1990s, early 1990s, to that period of Soviet collapse.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, I think the fascinating thing is that actually a lot of the wars have gotten larger both on scale and in scope as conventional conflicts, because if you look at the second generation of wars in the 2000s, and your exemplars might be something like the Russia-Georgia War, the series of wars between Armenian and Azerbaijan, the wars between Russia and Ukraine. These are actually... I raised Armenia and Azerbaijan so that's not entirely Russia-centric, those two are wars of Soviet succession principally, that these are principally conflicts of increase in intensity as wars and in some respects in scope. So I almost feel the frustration of a number of colleagues who in the policy establishment very much wanted to focus on strategic competition with China. And what's happening is that the Soviet Union is sort of dead, but it's not gone and it's still undermining their strategic vision.

Sergey Radchenko: Exactly. It's the nightmare that just keeps coming back. It just never goes away, and we don't know what to expect. I mean, one thing, and we still need to talk about this, is what is the long game here? Russia, of course, as you well know, has a capacity for reinventing itself, sometimes in a very negative direction as a hostile, revanchist power. But maybe it's too early as well to write Russia off and focus on China. I know you have been arguing that for years.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, I think it's always too early to write Russia off for a simple reason. I think that Russia through history goes through cycles of resurgence, stagnation, decline. And it's very commonly written off during periods of stagnation or during periods of decline, but it has a remarkable capacity for reconstitution. It doesn't follow secular trends. I'd say a lot of powers don't, I often chide folks who think that rising powers stay rising and declining powers stay declining. I don't think that's true. But I think in Russia's case in particular, if it has distinct power, it is reconstitution. And as a country, it seems to have a lot of latent power, a great deal of latent power. That's actually what separates great powers from regional powers and middle powers.

I have some people debate whether Russia's a great power or weak great power, what have you. And those nuances don't interest me as much as a sort of rough understanding of what it means both for state capacity and separately for state power. And so at least from my point of view, I think that this war, however it ends, will leave Russia in a dramatically weakened state when it comes to actual power, the ability to influence international relations to achieve your interests, power as power over others to get the outcomes you want. I mean, that's the utility of power in international politics.

Sergey Radchenko: But what could happen as well is a defeat in a war like this could actually spur focus on reform as defeats have historically. I mean, defeats in Russia either spurred reform efforts or revolutions, or a combination of these. So think about the Crimean War and the effort to modernize Russia in the wake of the Crimean War is one very, very good example. Obviously the Russian defeat in the First World War was followed by revolution. But then within just a couple of decades, of course, with lots of blood being shed through Stalin's murderous policies, you had a policy of industrialization and the policy of building up a modern state.

The Russo-Japanese War, to go back in time a little bit, prompted political reform, albeit short-lived, slightly short-lived, but still. So I think there is a capacity in Russia to reflect on the lessons learned, and sometimes these defeats actually do play a positive role from the perspective of Russian resurgence in the kind of medium or long term. So I think you're quite right. I mean, the question is what will this defeat if it does come about, which I'm not yet certain that it will necessarily in the kind of way that we might expect, but suppose that Russia is defeated, unquestionably, etc., etc. Will this then force a rethinking in Russia?

I mean, I would hope that it does, and I would hope that Russia for once tries to pursue that policy that the Chinese pursued since Deng Xiaoping's time, the Chinese have this way of... There's a Chinese saying called tao guang yang hui in Chinese, and that is to bid your time, to keep a low profile and focus on economic development. By the way, reasonable people like Trenton before he went over to Putin's side, used to say that this is exactly what Russia should do. It should abandon its imperial ambitions in what is so-called near abroad, and stop calling it near abroad, just focus on its own economic development, focus on its own modernization efforts, and turn itself into a modern, capable state, exercise soft power if it comes to it, abandon these kind of imperialistic efforts that are so self-defeating and that fundamentally make Russia a weaker actor on the international stage. Russia is weakening itself, it's making itself completely irrelevant.

So maybe ideas like this will actually prevail, reasonable heads will prevail, and you will have an effort to actually overcome corruption in Russia, to modernize Russia, to modernize it politically, modernize it economically. And also international politics, move away from this hostility towards the West, which is actually, I'm not being a starry-eyed liberal here in terms of let's engage with Europe and make Russia a part of Europe, it's not going to happen for various reasons, not least because the Europeans don't want to see Russia anywhere close here. But anyway, it doesn't make sense for Russia to do what it is doing now, i.e., to shut itself off from the West, which makes it that it has lost all leverage with Europe, it has lost all of its leverage with China, it is becoming some kind of a vassal of China, almost. A reasonable Russia would be a modern Russia, a capable Russia, a Russia that is able to balance between the East and the West, not necessarily get itself involved in this conflict between Europe and China, etc.

Michael Kofman: So let me interrupt you. I think that often in discourse, we conflate reform with retrenchment. One, a discussion on overall strategy. And the second one on the internal dynamics of Russia. And my view of it is that retrenchment is quite possible and likely. And we've seen in periods, let's say, after the defeat in the Crimean War, and I think it could be actually almost a natural evolution, a transition to a more defensive strategy such as the one elected by Gorbachev from a more offensive strategy that his predecessors pursued in international politics and competing with the United States. That's one discussion. However, when it comes to reform here, I'm a bit more pessimistic because-

Sergey Radchenko: Domestic reform, etc.

Michael Kofman: Because I don't think that domestic reforms in Russia resulting from defeats and wars last, because I think that Russia has a strong tradition of launching reforms after defeats that don't last.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, and you could argue that. And you have people like Stephen Kotkin, for example, who do see that long historical trend of Russia just being autocracy, and more autocracy, and autocracy never changing, etc. I mean, you can actually be modernizing autocracy for this matter. Autocracy does not necessarily mean that you are completely backward, there are plenty of examples of autocracies that are actually quite reasonable modernizing autocracies.

Michael Kofman: Sure.

Sergey Radchenko: Or look at Kazakhstan. I mean, look, is Kazakhstan a democracy? By God, it's not even close to any kind of democracy, but they're modernizing their economy, they're quite open, etc., etc.

Michael Kofman: Sergey, those aren't the reforms westerners are interested in. Those are actually the reforms they're afraid of.

Sergey Radchenko: I see.

Michael Kofman: A successful autocracy as a model of modernization without political liberalization. That's actually one of the typical biggest fears in the West.

Sergey Radchenko: This is a fear-

Michael Kofman: Because it's intellectual competition.

Sergey Radchenko: No, of course. Look, I'm not arguing that this is what should Russia... Of course, I'm more liberal. Of course, I want Russia to be a democratic society. Just the realist part of me says, "You know it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen, right?”

Michael Kofman: Well, here's my view. It can happen, but we shouldn't bank on it just like planning to win the lottery is not a good retirement plan.

Sergey Radchenko: Sure, sure. Exactly, exactly.

Michael Kofman: And you know what? And if it does happen, well, we'll know what to do if we happen to be so fortunate with that outcome, but it's much safer to plan on Russia probably continuing as some kind of autocracy or illiberal state.

Sergey Radchenko: As long as it doesn't invade its neighbors, that is already a good start. Yeah.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, right. But what typically happens in policy is when states are consistently unsuccessful in shaping the behavior of an adversary, and by the way, I'm just advancing this now as a theory, I don't actually think that this will always happen, but I have a hypothesis that I have developed as a result of the last half hour of us talking, that when states are not successful shaping the behavior of an adversary, they begin trying to figure out ways to shape the internal makeup of the adversary. Since they can't fix their behavior, they try to change the regime.

Sergey Radchenko: To undermine. Yeah, to undermine. And that's sometimes quite counterproductive.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, because you would think that the real issue with Russia as independent, what kind of country it is, its behavior. Behavior and international politics, right?

Sergey Radchenko: Well, exactly. But for me, the key issue that the Russians, I think, will need to deal with and recognize is what is actually in Russia's national interests? What is happening today with the invasion of Ukraine into my mind is not in accordance with Russia's national interests subjectively defined.

Michael Kofman: Sure.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah. And that is the problem, they don't see their own national interest, their own national interest isn't strengthening themselves internally. And you could even imagine a situation where a strong Russia is exercising economic pull, soft-power pull, etc. Now it's abandoning all of those things, it has become a pariah in the world. It has turned its back on the West, and that means turning its back on modernization because the West still stands in many ways for technological breakthroughs and modernization. Is that in Russia's national interest? Absolutely not, absolutely not.

Michael Kofman: Sure. But wouldn't you say historically major powers are often their own worst enemies, right? They commit strategic blunders, they engage in strategic sort of malfeasance, and if anything leads to the downfall of their power or a precipitous decline, it's their own actions, it's the choices they've made.

Sergey Radchenko: Of course, of course. But sometimes they're able to recognize this and try to act and modernize themselves and do something with themselves. And Russia is not an exception, they have tried to do that. I mean, after all, the overextension of the Cold War and all the conflicts in Africa and so on and so forth in Asia, Gorbachev realized that this retrenchment was what was needed, and it was a good conclusion. The problem with Gorbachev was that he couldn't hold the system together. It fell apart. The idea about retrenchment, pulling out from places like Afghanistan, withdrawing support for somebody like Mengistu in Ethiopia or for the Angolans, etc., etc. This was the right thing to do.

Michael Kofman: Can I sort of touch a bit of an electrified rail that you get in historical debates on the subject? To what extent did this really depend on Gorbachev versus many of the Soviet elites and the overall, sort of let's say Soviet leadership, had already concluded that the competition, the way they were pursuing, it wasn't sustainable, that they were in decline, and that they needed to conduct internal reforms. And Gorbachev's selection was a recognition more of that rather than he himself the principal agent of change.

Sergey Radchenko: To a certain extent, although I think there was a deep realization already in the Soviet leadership that things were not going in their direction. It wasn't really connected to foreign policy per se, it was connected to the realization that the economy was not working, that things were not going right economically and they knew that things were not going right, they just didn't know what to do about it. Soviet involvement in what was called then the Third World, was a result of what one of Gorbachev's advisors called inertia of proletarian internationalism. They got involved there at some point, and they just kept going, and going, and going.

Michael Kofman: That happens to us too. It's the inertia of strategy in pursuing diminishing things towards diminishing returns.

Sergey Radchenko: Exactly. And I think Russia today also suffers from that. I mean, they did get overextended. At one point, they felt themselves like they had lots of money, they seem to be able to project a global influence once again to places like the Middle East, for example, in Syria, and so on. Obviously not on the Soviet scale, but still. And you still see this, you still see this. And the question is, do the elites around Putin, do they recognize that this inertia, as it were, is actually harmful to Russia in many ways, and it detracts from their ability to focus on their domestic problems? Which is what they should do first and foremost if they want to survive. Will they recognize that? I hope they will.

Michael Kofman: Let me ask this one last question that I've been pondering. I think that whatever happens in this war, Russia has suffered a strategic defeat. And the strategic defeat stems from, at least in my perspective, this conflict being also in part about a Russian attempt to re-litigate the post-Cold War settlement in Europe, Russia's position in Europe, Russia's role in European security architecture, or lack thereof, how security outcomes are determined in Europe and by who. And from my point of view, putting aside the sort of tactical-level situation on the ground and the future of the war between Russia and Ukraine, I think that Russia's really shut itself out of European security for quite a long time. I don't know how long it is because judging by President Macron's statement this week, it might not be that long if Western Europeans have anything to say about it. But still, do you share my sentiment?

Sergey Radchenko: I share your sentiment in the sense that I also feel that after 1991, the European security infrastructure did really kind of exclude Russia. Of course, the Russians did try to be part of that, and you had the OCE, but it was toothless, but they were not anchored in the security framework as it were. Is that a problem? Well, yes. I think if we're looking for roots of conflict, of course we can point to Putin's imperialism, but it's never as simple as that. There's more complexity to this. And I think the fact that Russia was never anchored in the European security environment is an issue. But today, I think putting this front and center misses a big point. And that is that Russia, through its actions, through its very stupid blunder that it committed in Ukraine, kind of really took away its own right to talk about European security infrastructure and its future role within it.

So like I said, and I'll again draw your attention to the Chinese idiom about keeping your low profile, what Russia should do is to talk less about its supposed greatness and the Concert of Europe or whatever it wants to be part of now, returning to the spirit of 1815 or something. No, that's not what Russia needs. Russia needs to recognize that Russia has undermined what in the past could have counted as its own legitimate security interest by invading a neighboring country. And now it should recognize that it doesn't really have much of a voice in these matters, and it's unlikely to get a voice anytime soon, and it should focus its all on internal modernization. And so with time, of course, eventually it will get a voice, but this will take some smart policy. And as a first step abandoning its completely futile, ridiculous war in Ukraine.

Michael Kofman: By the way, if we take historical view, Russia's not only in my point of view, shut itself out from being involved in conversations and European security in the future, as you said, good luck to Russians talking about legitimate security interests moving forward, but they in some respects really fixed the history because the history of post-Cold War security architecture in Europe was somewhat debated. Who's to blame? Why? Which process drove it? What have you. But with this act the Russian government has essentially written that history in one distinct narrative, that is very much Russia is to blame and that whatever was done, was done, if anything, with foresight because of Russia's likely imperialistic revanchism.

Sergey Radchenko: Sure, sure, sure.

Michael Kofman: And essentially that they have through their own actions, settled the debate.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah. Well, exactly. The Eastern Europeans can now say, "We told you, we've been telling you for 30 years, you should never trust the Russians. Look what they're doing." And of course, that's exactly what Eastern Europeans were saying at the moment. So that is, if we approach this question as historians, and we look back…

Michael Kofman: Well, one of is.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, we look back at the 30 years of the construction of the architecture and Russia's exclusion, etc., etc. We can see where the problems are, we can see where the problems are. But as you say, today, this train has left the station already. We cannot renegotiate this question. And that is principally because of Russia's own actions. What can we do? What can we say? Russia deserves its current place.

Michael Kofman: The challenge I think we have is that it leaves European security fundamentally unsettled, because outside of NATO, at the end of the day, the large military power on the continent is still Russia. Maybe at the moment incredibly weakened, but Russia will rebuild. It's not a question of if, it's just a matter of when.

Sergey Radchenko: Now you're playing the Macron line here. Now you're being Macron.

Michael Kofman: Well, I'm not being Macron in the sense of policy prescriptions, but-

Sergey Radchenko: But in the sense of recognizing the problem.

Michael Kofman: Well, where's Russia going to go? I mean, what's the vision?

Sergey Radchenko: I mean, you're right. Russia is not going to disappear. And of course, now we can talk about the old Russia needs to accept that it has committed a terrible blunder, etc., etc. Will it? Maybe it won't. Should we somehow probe Russia towards a more reasonable position by offering at least a carrot of some shape? I think that's what Macron is thinking.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, but okay, here's the view. You can agree with people on the problem statement, you can have a very different view on the prescription for how to solve it. I think that's probably the challenge with the problem from my point of view with the French position, right? So if you accept that Russia isn't going to disappear and that Russia will remain a military challenge in Europe, you can have a number of different views on how best to deal with that challenge. And I add to that, the additional problem with the fact that European security in part is also unsettled because of the sort of fragmenting Russian influence from what was the former Soviet Union or the Russian Empire. And that you're still going to have, from my point of view, these ongoing conflicts like the Russo-Ukrainian War, or probably ongoing conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Sergey Radchenko: Yeah.

Michael Kofman: In the sense that... Okay, putting aside just sort of Russian imperialist revanchism, there are these ongoing issues that are legacy issues from the dissolution of the Soviet Union, which I actually think, Sergey, you did put correctly, that this in many respects more a process than an event. Or maybe, yes, it was an event, it was a historical event, but it's also a process because empires take a long time to collapse.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, what's the conclusion then? What do we do about it?

Michael Kofman: I think we talk about it, and in your case, write interesting books. And I may not agree with Macron on any of his prescriptions, but it's worth recognizing the challenge.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, he's right. I mean, I'm not going to go out there and criticize Macon and say, "Well, look, he's naive about Russia." There are plenty of Eastern Europeans who will do this for me. Macron understands, drawing on the French experience, this notion of losing an empire. France lost an empire, it suffered all kinds of defeat from Indochina to Algeria. But in the end, France found a role, it lost an empire, and found a role. And that is a role that was anchored to Europe, anchored to NATO. And Russia just simply doesn't have that. And where do you go from this? I don't know.

Michael Kofman: But I think part of the challenge is a question of identity, is that France, to a considerable extent, was able to find a post-modern identity as sort of a great power, but as a nation state, a power without an empire, a power that's not clutching all these colonial possessions. And you could argue that it sort of held Algeria to the last, before giving it up. And Russia hasn't made this imperial transition. It is like Emil Pain has described, I think accurately as a sort of a halfway house. Right? It's-

Sergey Radchenko: Well, exactly. But I think recognition of this problem should start with Russia itself recognizing that it has a problem. And fundamentally, our leverage here is very, very limited. What can we do? Until the Russians themselves recognize that they have a problem and they haven't yet.

Michael Kofman: It needs a change in strategic culture in some respects, also a cadre change, a change of elites.

Sergey Radchenko: Sure, sure. And maybe we do need a conversation. I'm always in favor of a conversation. I try, of course, as a former Russian, to maintain my links to Russia, to maintain conversation with the policy community there, just to understand what they're thinking. And I think we need to maintain this conversation, that’s as big a task as we can set ourselves at this stage.

Michael Kofman: Okay. On that sort of inconclusive, but nonetheless, thoughtful note, I think I want to end our conversation. Sergey, I really want to thank you for spending time with me, although actually you invited me to this town.

Sergey Radchenko: Well, we've had a good time.

Michael Kofman: Yeah, we had a good time, we had a good time out yesterday too, out in Bologna. I just want to say that I think Bologna is very underrated as far as Italian cities go.

Sergey Radchenko: Everybody should just come to Bologna and enjoy the place. It's fantastic.

Michael Kofman: No, don't. Because I noticed there aren't that many tourists here. In fact, stay away. There are other cities in Italy that already have plenty of tourism. But no, I want to thank you for your time with me. This has been another episode of The Russia Contingency, and thanks everyone for listening.