US Role in Bringing Stability Back to Europe: Thomas Graham / Distinguished Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations

Hello and welcome to DEEPER LOOK from New York.

I'm Del Irani, it's great to have your company.

Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine...

a sense of wariness and caution has spread across Europe.

The previously neutral and militarily non-aligned countries of Sweden and Finland are now rethinking their NATO membership.

While other European countries, such as Germany, have announced significant increases in their defense spending.

So, what will it take to bring stability to Europe once again?

And what role could the United States play, as a NATO member, in helping bring peace to the region?

Joining me now to talk more about this is Thomas Graham.

He's a distinguished fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.

He was Special Assistant to the US president, and Senior Director for Russia on the National Security Council staff from 2004 to 2007.

During his time in the Bush administration, he also managed White House-Kremlin strategic dialogue.

And, he joins me now. Thomas Graham, welcome to the program. Great to have you with us.

Great to be with you.

So, I want to get your opinion as an expert on US-Russia relations, who's been watching Russia for the last, you know, quite a few decades.

What is your take on the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Well, this is obviously, this is one of the most significant events in the past, I would say 30 or 40 years in US-Russian relations, and Russia's relationship with the West.

It's a clear effort to push back against what the United States and our partners in Europe have been trying to do since the breakup of the Soviet Union, which was expand the Euro-Atlantic institutions eastward towards Russia.

In order.... in the hope that we would create a more stable and more peaceful Europe.

Russia saw that through a quite different lens.

And they saw what the United States was trying to do as an effort to impose a settlement on Russia that didn't take into account Russia's security interest.

Russia has always thought that it needs a sphere of influence in Europe in order to feel secure, and that eastward movement of NATO, of the European Union actually reduced and eliminated that sphere of influence from the Russian standpoint.

Could you have predicted this happening?

I mean, this is this crisis something that, you know, you could have imagined happening, I mean, after the Cold War?

Well, you know, 30 years ago, very few people imagined this happening.

But I think it's quite clear that the Russians have been concerned about NATO expansion from the very beginning.

I worked in Moscow, in the late 80s, in the middle of the 1990s.

Even back then, the Russians were telling us that NATO expansion eastward is going to be a problem for us.

And they made a particular point of Ukraine.

Ukraine, they told us was a red line.

Ukraine has a special place in Russia's imagination, in part, because of the way the Russian state itself was built over the centuries, because of the close relationship between the two people.

And, many observers in the West forget that Ukraine was actually the center of the Industrial Revolution in Russia, in the Russian Empire in late 19th, early 20th century, and an integral part of the Soviet economic system.

You know, I mean, you mentioned about how disruptive this has been to the peace and stability in Europe.

Then, I think we're seeing the fallout of that, because of course, since the invasion, now, Finland and Sweden have both come forward and said, "Look, we also want to join NATO."

How much of a game changer could that be in this conflict between Russia and Ukraine?

What impact could it have, if any at all?

Well, I don't think it's going to have much impact on the actual conflict in Ukraine.

I mean, after all, the Finns and the Swedes, along with other Europeans are already quite supportive of Ukrainians, certainly moral support, some weapons, and so forth.

If they enter NATO, that's not going to change anything to any great degree.

The significance is more long term, and what it tells us about how European security is going to be organized going forward, and how the European Union itself is going to act as a security actor in Europe, something where they played a very weak role over time.

But if you bring Sweden and Finland into NATO, for all practical purposes, the EU is part of NATO.

The only four EU countries that wouldn't be in NATO are Ireland, Austria, Malta, and Cyprus - hardly thought of its major military powers.

So that will have an impact on how Europe organizes its security, it will have an impact on how the United States acts towards a more unified European security and foreign policy community.

Is there any way to ease tensions with Russia, while expanding NATO membership to other countries?

It's very difficult to do.

Over the past 30 years, as NATO has expanded, the alliance has tried to set up a forum where they would give Russia a voice, but not a veto over NATO, over NATO affair.

We did that in the 1990s, we expanded it in the 2000s, when I was working in the Bush administration.

That never seemed to be satisfactory from Russia's standpoint.

You know, the fundamental problem is that we have very different views of security.

Again, as I said, for the Russians, the sphere of influence is very important.

Strategic depth, pushing the borders outward, has been a fundamental requirement for Russian security for centuries, in fact.

We see the expansion eastward of Euro-Atlantic institutions, democracy and free markets, in addition, as a foundation for peace and security going forward.

And so, there's a fundamental clash between our desire to expand the alliance eastward, and Russia's desire to push that line further westward, for its own security.

You know, there are things we can do on the margins: arms control agreements, that limit the deployment of troops or certain types of weaponry, within a certain zone, along the Russia–NATO border.

But there's always going to be tension between Russia and an expanding Europe.

Let's go back to Putin's early years.

I mean, he came into power in the 2000s.

And during that time, it was around the time that you were serving, you were leading Russian policy in the White House and the US Department of State, for that eight-year period.

Tell us a little bit about what the US policy towards Russia was during that time.

Well, it was a two-pronged policy at that point, and actually, not unlike what other administrations had done both before and after.

So, we tried to build a partnership with Russia.

But we also hedged against a reversion to more... Russia's more imperialist tradition.

And we did some very positive things.

We worked very closely together in the early years in counterterrorism, in part because of the 9/11 attacks here in the United States, and a very positive Russian response and offers of help at that point.

We worked together, I think, quite well in non-proliferation.

Not only dealing with the issues of Iran and North Korea, but also the potential spread of weapons of mass destructions to terrorist organizations.

In fact, the two countries launched a major effort to combat nuclear terrorism at that point.

But at the same time, we were very clear that we were going to support the independence of all the new states that emerged from the wreckage of the Soviet Union,

and that we're also going to expand NATO eastward.

And that was a hedge against a revision to more imperialist tendencies in Russia.

Something that many people would say has paid off at this point.

Well, actually, I'm glad you raised that, because I want to deep dive into that.

I mean, a couple of the policies that were implemented during the time of the Bush administration, when you were very much working there was: in 2004, the US made it clear that they supported Ukraine's push for democracy.

In 2007, the US favored the decision to allow Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO.

Now, there are some experts that believe that it was these types of decisions, and rhetoric that really has made Russia more hostile towards Ukraine.

How do you respond to that?

I mean, is the US somehow responsible for what is currently going on between Russia and Ukraine?

Certain things that we did increased the tension.

And as I said, Ukraine has always been a sore point for the Russians.

They indicated to us, right after the breakup of the Soviet Union, that this is a red line for them.

And we crossed the red line, in many ways.

I think the events in 2004 were largely the result of indigenous tensions within Ukraine.

That's not the way the Russians saw it.

They saw it very much as a US effort to put in place a presidential figure that was opposed to Russia and pro-Western.

In fact, I had a conversation with a senior Kremlin official at that point, who told me point-blank, that they were developing youth movements in Russia, so that they would be able to put muscle out in the street,

in the case the United States tried to perform a regime change operation in Russia itself.

So, they clearly saw this as a US effort to undermine Russia's relations with Ukraine, and Russia's position in Ukraine.

2008 - United States pushed very hard for the expansion of NATO into Ukraine and Georgia, against the resistance of our European partners, Germany and France.

You know, my own sense was: that was a bridge too far at that point, we hadn't prepared the ground properly.

And so, while we are certainly not the ones who are responsible for Putin latest action, there was tension in the relationship, and certain things that the United States did increased that tension.

Whether there were ways that we could have operated, that would have produced the smoother path forward, is an issue that historians are going to debate for many, many years.

So, if you were in the White House today, and you were advising the US president, what would you tell them about how the United States should deal with Russia right now,

to potentially de-escalate the situation that's going on?

That's a tough question.

No, really. Seriously.

You know, the point that I would make right now, is that we have to be very careful not to turn what is Putin's war into Russia's war.

We're going to have to deal with Russia after this conflict, and Russia is not going to go away.

And the challenge, the policy challenge is that, while you are trying to isolate what Putin is trying to do at this point, is to convey to a broader set of Russians that there is a way to build a more constructive relationship between our two countries going forward.

That we're not going to demonize Russia, we realize that Russia is a significant global actor, has a very illustrious past, has an important role to play going forward.

But we've got to get over this one terrible incident at this point.

So, I sense that we're prepared to deal with Russia, under somewhat different circumstances, to take into account their interest, and define those areas where we can cooperate.

And indeed, there are a number of areas where we have to, for our own futures: nuclear weapons, strategic stability, climate change, pandemic, international terrorism.

There are places where US-Russian cooperation is critical to the future of the planet.

And we shouldn't lose sight of that, in the current sort-of-emotion over what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

So then, how do you see the future of US-Russia relations moving forward?

You know, I think no matter how this ends, there will be a difficult relationship between our two countries.

We're rivals, and I think we need to acknowledge that, and historically we've been rivals.

This is not an aberration, what we're seeing - the intensity, maybe.

But for the past 100, 125 years, the United States and Russia have been competitors on the global stage.

The challenge is to manage that competition in a responsible fashion.

It's imperative that we maintain strategic stability; that's an existential issue for both of our countries.

It's imperative that we manage the competition - geopolitical competition, in a responsible fashion, to reduce the risk of a conflict that could escalate to the nuclear level.

And that means developing rules of the road, getting a sense of what the limits are of competitive behavior -

something that we actually did during the Cold War, certainly during the later stages.

And then finally, we always need to leave open the opportunity that we can cooperate on these transnational issues that I've already mentioned.

So those are the three aspects: strategic stability is imperative, responsible competition, and the possibility of cooperation on major global challenges.

Fantastic stuff. Thomas Graham, thank you so much for your time.

You're certainly welcome.

Now, US-Russia relations are at their lowest point since the Cold War.

And there are no signs of tensions easing anytime soon.

But this bilateral relationship is one of the most critical in the world, with implications for all of us.

Sooner or later, we will need these two superpowers to work together again, to solve global problems like nuclear proliferation, terrorism, and climate change.

It'll be their responsibility to put their differences aside and find some common ground, because our future depends on it.

I'm Del Irani, thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time.