the breakup of yugoslavia a civil war. so let's begin with something. i usually stay away with stay away from rather my day-to-day podcast and that is what's happening on the ground. we want the podcast to survive forever not become dated, but i am curious as to what you think about why russia's invasion? has gone so poorly at least from a russian perspective not achieving any major objectives yet. well, i think there are a couple of factors it begins i think with a ambition that was unrealizable from the beginning in this ambition was to dominate entirely the country of ukraine to knock out its government. to put in a puppet really to take control in some way. maybe not over all of ukrainian territory. but over most of it now, it's a country. that's roughly the size of texas a population a bit less than 40 million people and the russians came in with a with an army of 200,000 soldiers. so it just wasn't proportional from the beginning and there was great overconfidence on the russian side about the ukrainians falling apart or joining up with the with the russians and that's i think the the primary reason the hubris we hear from our western perspective the idea that ukrainians wanted to revolt from these imaginary nazis that had taken over the country and putin's view obviously as you just said the ukrainians not rally to the russian flag, but also, logistically lack of air supremacy just from a tactical strategic standpoint this professional army. i think it's surprised a lot of people without poorly. it is performed. well, of course, there are two ways of looking at the same issue here on the one hand. ukrainians have performed wave above expectations that many in the us in ukraine and russia had for the ukrainian military. so part of it is the success of the ukrainian military they have high morale. they've really been training and improving their military since 2014 and they have the assistance of quite a few very powerful countries, including the united states. so that's clearly a major factor, but beyond an unrealizable concept that that either putin or his generals develop for this war you see lots of corruption within the russian military and you know, you just see a sense of confusion, i think on the part of russian soldiers as to what it is that they're fighting for so that's a recipe for for not succeeding echoes of the soviet invasion of afghanistan when truly crutes were drawn to the theater of war with no clue they were going or why they were there true of course we're speaking here in late springtime heading into the summer so that can change as we know russia's still very powerful military could potentially blast its way to something called victory. that's what sir max hastings the great military historian thought could happen when he joined me on the podcast a few weeks ago. but in the meantime enormous amount of destruction in suffering and a massive refugee problem, that could destabilize that part of europe. that's for sure. i mean you have millions upon millions of internally displaced people within ukraine people who have moved from the east to the west or from battle zones to parts that aren't under immediate fire and then of course you have i believe it's around five million refugees in poland and and elsewhere so the scale of this in humanitarian terms cannot be exaggerated. it's an utter catastrophe for the people of ukraine poland's population jumped 10 something percent in a short period of time. it's just because of refugees amazing. okay, so let's talk a little history. shall we do you remember what you were doing besides opening presents? on christmas day 1991 christmas day 1991. i don't really remember but i do recall sort of as a historian at the flag was coming down the soviet flag was coming down and something new was being born. it wasn't just the russian federation but 15 new countries a new map of europe and i do recall also, you know having been about 18 years old at the time the great feeling of optimism, maybe not all russians felt it but certainly in the us we felt it and across much of europe. there was a sense of a real new beginning you're reading my mind. it was gonna ask you about that moment of optimism. i'm talking about the day christmas day 1991 president bush gave a televised address now, i was 16 years old. i was not paying attention to international politics or what really was going on in the news. i do remember reagan. i was a child of the 80s. i watched all those cold war movies rambo and red dawn which is still a very good movie by the way. it was the last time you watch red dawn that's childhood early adolescence. yeah. it's not forget firefox also, okay. president bush on tv basically says and i encourage everyone listening to seek this speech out. it's on youtube. we won they lost. freedom and liberty prevailed this is a he said this is a victory for our values. i wasn't just that the soviet union collapsed from within this was a victory for western values in a sense. we defeated them. but we know that bush was also a pragmatist he understood because he was aware of european history. he was a pilot in world war two that whatever the triumphalist feeling of that speech or those remarks on tv. he was aware of the potential dangers and challenges to come i bring all of this up because as you reflect as a scholar on the past 30 years and that moment of optimism which of your assumptions about the way history would develop after the cold war have turned out not to be the way you expected. i don't know what assumptions i had really at at that time apart from that general mood of optimism that the walls were coming down the berlin wall and others the borders were opening up. there was a sense that a lot could be achieved through cooperation. and i think if you look back over the last 30 years, that's not wrong a lot was achieved through cooperation. we really did we collectively built a new europe where east and west were much more integrated much more trade commerce exchange of ideas. it's not as if all of the optimism was misplaced. a lot of it really was better than it was during the cold war. i think that the remaining question of the outstanding question in 1991, and it's only grown in stature over time is where does russia fit in all of this? and i think that the assumption then and this is much more questionable in retrospect was that russia would join the club in some form or fashion? it would be a partner it would take on a market economy. it would become a democracy. maybe russians wouldn't become exactly like us but they would speak the same language and as not as if that didn't happen at all lots of ways in which we can discuss those trends, but that's clearly not putin's russia and we are back in a kind of confrontation that's in a way more acute than anything. we experience during the cold war. i don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the state of us russia relations is at its worst point. probably since the early cold war days the cuban missile crisis, maybe ronald reagan's first term before the day taunt when that was a very cold period of the cold war we said two things there. i mean we should focus on some of the successes right in eastern europe the former block those countries despite some backsliding and hungary in poland. they are still democracies. they're working towards becoming integrated market economies. would you agree very much. so i think that for these countries the progress that we might have hoped for after 1991 is is very real. it was really achieved and it wasn't just market economies and democracy. it was their national independence and that's a story for people across eastern and central europe and that's a story that will take us to ukraine. but of course ukraine is you can't put it in the category of of prosperous prosperous successful countries and at the moment because it's a somewhat different story, but that's where they wish to go. that's right. ukraine is always held special place in this. equation another part of that optimism was that maybe the era of block politics block strategy would come to an end. we have another dividing line in europe again, ukraine happens to be on the wrong side of it. although i mean for all intents and purposes they they're getting article 5 protection in a way we can get back to the present moment in a little bit but i mean was that an unrealistic expectation that the era of block politics would go away. well, i would urge as much precision as possible. so there was a hope for a new world for this broad cooperation that russia china the united states would all be integrated into some kind of collective system goes back to woodrow wilson and dreams of of world cooperation and world order that was very much there, but it's not as if nato was dismantled after 1991 and in fact nato was expanded across much of europe in part and it varies from country to country but in part as a hedge against russia's return so at the same time if there was a hope for a world without blocks and without conflict and without tension, you know that hope was qualified to a degree by the expectation that this might return and that was one of the reasons why nato is still kept in in existence. did the cold war really end? some people say not really what's your view on that? i mean it did end it did end but there were continuities into the new era. i think the cold war ended certainly for for a time and one of the ways in which it's still over is that the cold war was not just a battle of countries and not just a battle of armies and a matter of nuclear weapons. the cold war was the battle of ideas and whatever the current crisis is or the current competition is it's much more of a standard kind of classic geopolitical competition between the united states and russia or between the west and russia, it's not i think at the moment so much of a battle of ideas. so in that sense the cold war was was different and perhaps when it concluded in 1991 it concluded for good in its terms. some historians have argued that what we're witnessing right now are the wars of soviet succession that the collapse of the soviet union was not an event. it was a process still playing out to this day, obviously because when empires collapse, it's a bloody protracted process the war in chechnya and the early 90s renewed again as yeltsin was leaving the stage and putin was coming on georgia in 2008 when george w bush was president and now of course ukraine i shouldn't say now ukraine you ukraine since 2014 you were in the state department one crimea. oh, no you came in a little bit after the annexation of crimea. i cannot blame that on you but to my point what what's your view as a historian on that idea that we're witnessing the wars of soviet succession. i think that's an excellent way. i think of the current crisis in the current tensions one of the things that the cold war did interestingly was to keep things in check at the same time that there was a lot of tension conflict during the cold war in a way europe got frozen. maybe that's one of the ways in which it was cold when the soviet union collapses europe unfreezes. we might think of that as a good thing in terms of countries getting their independence and you know sort of national movements of rediscovery baltic republics poland many other countries. that was unbalance of very very good thing but by becoming unfrozen you have a very open question of what the borders are what the security structures are. nato is one answer to that. it's been coherent for the nato member states, but you have a lot of countries that are not in nato and you have belarus to the north of ukraine and you have also moldova to the south where there's a russian military presence in part of the country and belarusa sort of been absorbed recently into russia. at least at least militarily and ukraine is is a war zone so gradually sort of year by year exactly as you suggest there was a war in georgia in 2008. it hasn't been a peaceful process. and in fact, it's been getting more bloody and more violent year by year this process of figuring out where does russia end and where does europe begin if those are the right terms? yeah. there's been a lot of debate to say the least about the nato issue to what extent can we blame nato expansion for russian aggression john meersheimer the scholar basically says the united states is responsible for the war in ukraine by pushing nato expansion we can get to him in a little bit but to your point about those wars they convinced countries in eastern europe that they needed to be in nato, especially the chechnya in the 1990s 1990s. he do great that that's a very important point that the way in which russia boris yeltsin's russia in the 1990s, of course before putin comes to power the way in which it managed some of its internal problems, especially the whole issue of chechnya, which is politically a part of russia, but it was a threatened to be a separatist territory and it was suppressed very brutally. i think that a lot of countries in central and eastern europe looked at that and said, well this makes the whole issue of joining nato all the more important. so yes, boriskelson's russia did quite a bit to advance the urgency of expanding the nato alliance so much focus on putin the 1990s are very important decade in this story on the road to war but you know when it comes to the nato question and whether nato should pack up its bags and go home because the warsaw pact had disolved or should expand slowly and selectively or basically put the pedal to the metal as what happened in 08 with george bush and the bucharest conference. will follow it after that all those questions. they weren't decided in 1989 before we were talking before the collapse of the soviet union now. but that was a key moment in this the so-called not one inch promise that is playing a part in today's drama because putin does say the west promised. they would not expand nato one inch past its current border. well, that was just a discussion. that was a conversation between james baker and and soviet officials. i think actually was gorbachev himself. we know that president george h w bush and his cabinet ultimately decided that not only would a unified germany remain part of nato, but that nato would have the freedom to potentially expand in the future. what are your thoughts on her that chapter because as i said, it's looming large right now the so called not one inch that's for sure. well the open door policy of nato which goes directly against the notion of not expanding it one inch is in fact built into the nato charter of 1949. so structurally nato has had this element of it sweden in finland are probably going to enter the alliance this summer on the basis of this of this policy the open door policy, and that's not 89 shift that's an old policy. that's that's been woven into okay woven into nato. i think that it's perfectly legitimate to talk about the historical record and to go over those discussions and see what was said and what people felt and what they thought about it. that's a legitimate historical conversation the idea that anything that james baker would have said in private is binding or is sort of obligating the us or germany to do anything. i think it's just off the mark. that's that's russian storytelling and a part of their narrative and in the end is really just a propaganda narrative on the russian part. i don't think it plays any meaningful role in policy and you know not to engage in a kind of schoolyard response to your question. but who is it for the russians at the moment to ask about you know promises that have been broken and and and and and you know, sort of treaties and such that have been violated we could go down along list of russian violations over the last 20-25 years of special under under putin. so it's a good historical conversation to have you want to have good accurate data. i see no policy consequence of what was discussed in 1989 that would change the nature of the open door, you know sort of discussion at the open door policy of nato well in the final settlement the treaty i guess which was the treaty that kind of ended the occupation of germany after world war two allowed for nato expansion with some conditions. now, of course, it didn't take long for that treaty to be interpreted differently to turn on which side of the new dividing line you were on but i mean, it's my interpretation as just a reader of these issues and mary elise sarati has written a great book about it actually have that book here. i'm gonna reference it at some point that the russians are getting the story wrong and that doesn't mean that there were issues with nato expansion that nato expansion was not threat to russia from their perspective, but this idea that it should never have expanded is is not it's a red herring. it's not it's not worth. it's not worth too much. do you remember serious consideration? yeah. do you remember the last country be accepted into nato? at in the last couple of years. yeah. i don't know if it's north macedonia. yes. i do this sometimes to my guess. i like to put them on the spot, which is not fair. not a walking encyclopedia. north macedonia and 2020 montenegro tiny country in 2017, albania and croatia former members of yugoslavia 2009, you know at one point in this debate really going back to the early post cold war years early 1990s the notion that these tiny countries should be part of nato was as a non-starter, wasn't it? it'd be too much too much territory to defend. what's the interest of giving article 5 protection to countries like this one. it might be difficult to actually protect them in thinking behind nato expansion or some people prefer to use the term nato enlargement. although i'm not quite sure what the difference is between between those between those two words, but i think one of the premises was that it could help consolidate countries as democracies. so by bringing them into nato there is in the nato charter also a commitment to democracy. so there's a democratization agenda that's connected to the enlargement of nato. but there's also the sense that and you know, this has been imperfect but the sense that nato helps to resolve regional security problems, so instead of having let's say a germany, that would be a nato in a bolt a set of three baltic republics that are not a part of nato if you put them all in nato it, you know, sort of unifies it connects them and it makes it very unlikely that there would be any sort of tension or conflict going back to the late 40s. this was really a question of germany and france at one of the great things that nato did is to bring germany and france into the same alliance. and of course the uk and these countries that for so many years had gone to war with each other and you know seen each other as aggressors and enemies. we're suddenly partners and allies in an alliance and that's done a lot of great things for europe. and so i think there's a sense with some of these smaller countries that you can get a similar dynamic and well the baltic states wanted to join me. absolutely. i've been living under domination they were annexed by stalin during world war two. absolutely. yeah, so in their view, they weren't necessarily thinking about germany a revention of germany margaret. thatcher was in the late 1980s. she was concerned about a unified germany because of world war two, but they were they were concerned about an aggressive soviet union hundred percent. but ukraine falls into a to a different category. maybe i'll get to ukraine and nato now i want to talk to you about what condition us russia relations were in as the yeltsin and clinton administration's got underway because they were in pretty good shape. there were still some leftover trust in communication and some hope for coop