Michael McFaul

>> How far is Vladimir Putin willing to go?

This week on "Firing Line."

The White House says the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is very real and warns the consequences would be deadly and would reshape global security.

>> If Russia attacks Ukraine, it'll be met with overwhelming international condemnation.

>> The messages from Putin are mixed.

Russia claims it's open to negotiating, even as Russian troops and firepower surround Ukraine.

>> This would be a major war, probably the biggest conventional war in Europe since 1939.

>> Michael McFaul served on President Obama's National Security Council, then as his ambassador to Russia.

McFaul has been at the table for key negotiations with the Kremlin.

He's also been personally targeted by Putin and banned from Russia.

So what is Russia's endgame?

And how should the United States and our allies respond?

>> It's important when you're negotiating with autocrats to not check your values at the door.

>> What does Ambassador Michael McFaul say now?

>> "Firing Line With Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... Robert Granieri, Charles R. Schwab, The Fairweather Foundation, the Asness Family Foundation, and by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, and Damon Button.

Corporate funding is provided by... Stephens Inc. and Pfizer Inc. >> Ambassador Michael McFaul, welcome to "Firing Line."

>> Glad to be here.

>> More than 150,000 Russian troops, along with weapons, are stationed near the border with Ukraine, and an invasion is an imminent threat according to United States officials.

You were the ambassador to Russia during the Obama administration from 2012 to 2014, and you've spent your career as a democracy activist, as an academic, and a policy maker specializing in Russia.

The specter of Russia invading Ukraine has been described as a conflict that could be unlike anything else since World War II.

What would war look like?

>> War is always bad.

War is always horrible.

Everyone loses.

This would be a major war.

150,000 soldiers on all borders of Ukraine and boats off the coast, too, ready to land and put soldiers on that coast, as well.

Ukraine has a real army, as well.

A quarter of a million soldiers are ready to fight, as well.

So it'll be a major conventional war, probably the biggest conventional war in Europe since 1939.

Ukrainians, of course, will suffer the biggest casualties.

Tragically, people more expert than I talk about casualties in the tens of thousands.

And I want to remind everybody, there's a lot of ethnic Russians that live in Ukraine, too.

So if he does invade in a full time way, he will kill ethnic Ukrainians, but also ethnic Russians.

>> Given what you've just laid out, why would Putin consider invading Ukraine?

>> I'll tell you his reason formally, and then I'll give you my interpretation for what I think is really going on.

Formally, Putin has amassed these forces at the same time that he's sent two treaties.

He drafted them himself, by the way, unilaterally, and then said, "Please sign at the bottom line."

It's normally not how it works.

Normally you negotiate them privately and then sign them at the end.

But irrespective, he did that, put all these forces there.

And then he said, "I have some conditions."

There are lots of conditions, but the main one is, freeze the open door of NATO to Ukraine.

Give me a guarantee that Ukraine will never join NATO.

Now in my view, he's invented that cause for this war.

Because in fact, there hasn't been any progress towards Ukraine joining NATO.

They've got a long ways to go before they do.

I think he's got bigger agendas here.

One, he wants to rewrite the Cold War post-war order that he thinks was wrongly enforced and imposed upon Russia when Russia was weak 30 years ago.

Number two, he wants to unite the Slavic peoples -- Ukraine, Belarus, Russia.

He thinks that they were wrongly divided when the Soviet Union collapsed.

I want to be clear everybody understands, it was a Russian, a Belarussian, and Ukrainian leader that dissolved the Soviet Union.

It wasn't the United States of America or the West.

But from his perspective, that was a mistake.

He called it the greatest tragedy of the 20th century.

Think about that for a minute.

It's a pretty tragic century, and he says that.

And he has written very recently a 6,000-word essay explaining to the world and to his people why Ukraine and Russia are one nation and he wants to bring them back.

And the third thing.

This is really about democratic expansion.

This is not about NATO expansion.

He doesn't like the fact that Ukraine is a democracy.

It's a messy one.

It's inefficient.

You know, a lot of them are, by the way.

And he doesn't want to have a successful democracy on his border with a nation that he claims to be just like Russia, because that undermines the legitimacy of his autocratic Russia.

And that, I think, is another part of this agenda.

>> The prospect of a diplomatic solution appears to be fading.

Russia says the proposals of the United States and its allies are not what they want and, quote, "Russia will be forced to respond, including through the implementation of military technical measures."

What does that mean?

>> Pretty scary, huh?

I think that's a euphemism for war, military intervention.

They've gone back and forth.

The Biden administration did respond to the treaties, as did NATO, in written form, just like Putin asked for.

And that was rather controversial, by the way.

You know, negotiating with a hostage taker, after all.

But they did.

But so far, Vladimir Putin and other government officials have made it pretty clear that they weren't happy with the response, and that threat remains on the table.

And so far, the capabilities to invade have been increasing.

It doesn't mean that Putin's made his final decision.

I don't know if he has.

But so far, there's been no change in the general pace leading up to an invasion.

>> Ambassador, you just likened the Biden administration's approach as "negotiating with a hostage taker."

And, you know, you acknowledge it was quite controversial that they replied to Putin's terms.

Given the response and the continued hostilities, has that been successful?

>> Well, we can't judge success until we know the outcome.

I do think it was a controversial decision to negotiate, to react to those unilaterally drafted treaties, right?

That's not normal diplomacy.

I think it was the right decision.

>> Do you agree with it?

>> I do.

Not easily, though.

You can see the way that I talk about it, right?

I call it a hostage situation.

Putin has a gun to the head of President Zelensky and the Ukrainian people, and he's saying, "Here are my terms."

Sometimes, as we know in real hostage situations, we're compelled to negotiate because not doing that, the outcome is worse than the negotiation.

I don't think we should have any illusions though when we do it, and I think it's important when you're negotiating with autocrats to not check your values at the door, and to understand sometimes you need to negotiate, but you do it with eyes wide open.

You know who your interlocutors are.

I think that's wise advice for any diplomat, any American diplomat when dealing with autocratic adversaries.

>> There's violence in eastern Ukraine, as you know.

Russian backed separatists say government forces have fired on their territory.

And Ukraine says the separatists shelled a kindergarten, though there aren't reports of injured children.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said, quote, "We have said for some time the Russians might do something like this to justify a military conflict."

How do you see it?

>> I'm really worried about that particular situation.

Because remember back in 2014, the argument from Moscow for why they invaded then was to protect ethnic Russians from alleged violence.

And they called them Nazis, Ukrainian Nazis.

And that was the justification he gave to annex Crimea.

And so this sounds like a similar replay of that.

>> Ambassador, why should Americans be concerned about one country's borders on the other side of the world?

>> Well, I think for a variety of reasons.

But the number one reason is to prevent us going back to the Hobbesian, anarchic world before World War II.

Remember, annexation was part of what started World War II.

When Hitler invaded Poland, that started World War II in Europe.

And then, as we know, tragically, unprovoked preemptive war in Pearl Harbor, when the Japanese attacked us, was the start of World War II for us.

And so after that horrific war, the leaders of the world in 1945 got together, they created the United Nations, and they wrote down some principles to try to avoid World War III again.

One of the main principles in those documents and subsequent documents was, "Thou shall not annex territory of thy neighbor."

Right?

It's not phrased in those terms.

I used the Ten Commandments language there, but it's one of the highest priorities of our system since 1945.

And think about it, we did not have annexation in Europe even during the height of the Cold War.

Both sides, even the Soviets, and our side, decided we don't want to go down that road because we don't want to go down a slippery slope of a World War III.

2014 was a major turning point in the history of the international system, in my view, because that's when you had the return of annexation in Europe, when Putin annexed Crimea.

That is a world I don't want to go back to.

And I don't think it's in America's national interest to go back to it.

Because let's be clear, if Putin can invade whenever he wants an independent, sovereign country and annex territory, why can't other countries?

Why can't China invade Taiwan and say, "Well, we don't have any norms against this anymore?"

And let me remind everybody, Taiwan is not even considered a sovereign country by the United States of America.

Their territorial claims there are much more legitimate in the system than they are when it comes to Russia versus Ukraine.

And I don't even mean China.

I just mean, if we just open the floodgates that anybody can use force to try to take back territory any time, that leads to a lot of conflict.

And that will be conflict, I guarantee you, that someday we would be pulled into.

This notion that what happens in Ukraine doesn't really matter here, well, you know, that's what people said about Czechoslovakia back in 1938 here in the United States.

And that turned out to be tragically wrong.

And I think it would be tragically wrong, especially today, when the world is much more integrated in 2022 than it was back in 1939.

>> Ambassador, you have a long personal history with Vladimir Putin.

You describe in your book "From Cold War to Hot Peace" how Putin harbored a personal animus towards you, verbally attacked you at a high level meeting in 2012.

Why does Putin dislike you in particular?

>> Well, thanks for asking, and I'll explain it, but it's actually exactly related to what we were talking about earlier.

When I was ambassador in Russia, right before I got there, there was a parliamentary election in Russia.

It was stolen, just like they normally are, 5%, 7% falsification.

But this time, because of smart phones and other technologies, people documented that falsified vote, spun it around and said, "Hey, we're not going to take this anymore."

And that led to a ground swell of popular opposition to that election -- 200,000 people on the streets of Moscow demanding democratic change in Russia.

And I arrived right as those demonstrations were happening.

And so Putin blamed me personally.

You know, his propaganda said that I was sent by Barack Obama to foment revolution against him.

And so that was my fate.

For that whole time I was there I was Mr.

Revolutionary.

I was not, you know, Mr.

Ambassador, in his eyes.

And there were a couple of times when I was in meetings where he directly blamed me for fomenting revolution against him.

Because in his mind-set, you have to understand, he doesn't believe that people would independently act to try to make their countries more democratic.

For him, he always sees the hidden hand of the CIA or the Pentagon or the "deep state" in the United States.

And that's where his paranoia comes from, and that's the paranoia that he has about Ukraine today.

>> You were later banned from Russia.

Putin tried to convince the Trump administration to submit you to questioning by Russian authorities.

What has this taught you about Putin?

>> Well, I'd say a couple of things.

It's a great question.

First of all, the Putin I met in '91, he's changed over time.

So, his views of the world back then are very different today.

And in particular, he's become more paranoid about markets and independent economic factors.

And two, of course, he's become much more paranoid about the West.

He thinks the West is out to get him, and now he's gone on the offensive.

And I think this is something that is not well understood in the West.

Putin is not just some Machiavellian, realpolitik calculating guy about Russia's national interests.

I think that's a categorically wrong way to think about him.

He's an ideologue.

He has a set of ideas about the world.

They're populist, nationalist, orthodox views.

He's anti-multilateralism.

He thinks the liberal, decadent West is promoting values that are against Russian culture, is promoting democracy that's against Russian security interests, as defined by him.

And in the first decade of his time in power, he was playing defense and trying to consolidate power and his ideas about power inside Russia.

For the last decade, he's been on offense.

He spends lots of money with things like Russia Today, and Sputnik, and Russian NGOs, and even giving money directly to political candidates to spread and to create ideological alliances with people in Europe and the United States, even in the United States, who think like him.

And so this battle between autocracy and democracy, as he defines it, is not just between states, it's within states.

And let's be honest, he's had some wins.

Is Viktor Orban closer to Putin or President Biden, the leader of Hungary?

I think he's probably closer to Putin today.

Salvini in Italy, Le Pen in France, and even here in the United States.

There's a wing of the Republican Party around Mr. Trump that says very sympathetic things about Vladimir Putin and his ideology.

And that is exactly what he's been doing.

And that's something I've learned over this period of history that I didn't know before.

The other thing I want to say, and this is going to be a little bit controversial, but I do think there's good and evil in the world.

I think it's wrong to think that it's all about geopolitics and rational interests.

And Mr. Putin, I think, has done a great deal of harm, not only to Georgia when he invaded, Ukraine when he invaded, but to his own people.

You know, I love Russia.

I lived seven or eight years of my life in Russia until I was put on the sanctions list in 2014.

I still have close friends in Russia.

It's a place that I've always had hope for.

And it's just crystal clear to me that a different course, trajectory, political course back in 2000 could have made Russia so much more respected, respected in the world, so much richer.

You know, they could be a normal, boring, democratic European country today.

And I think that's the real tragedy of this Putin era.

>> President Biden said on Wednesday that Nord Stream 2, the pipeline system that would deliver natural gas under the Baltic Sea from Russia directly to Germany, will be terminated if Russia invades Ukraine.

Is this the most effective deterrence tool at the moment?

>> I would put it, it's one of many, right?

And I want to be clear here.

The Biden administration is reacting to this aggression and this hostage situation.

They don't have great cards compared to Putin, let's be clear, for the simple fact that President Biden has made it very clear that we're not going to send American soldiers to Ukraine to fight Russian soldiers.

And so once you've taken that off, you take it off the most potent deterrent weapon.

But with the cards that they have, I think they've played them pretty well, which is to say they have increased military assistance to Ukraine.

I support that.

I think we made a mistake in the Obama administration, by the way.

I think we should have provided lethal assistance then to the Ukrainians.

I'm glad that President Trump changed that.

They decided to give lethal assistance.

It was a bit tragic that he then tried to tie it, to try and quid pro quo, to get them to help him with his election campaign, but let's save that for another story.

We should have done more.

And I think, you know, with a longer lead time, there are some weapons, especially some anti-aircraft weapons that would be useful to Ukraine, but it's too late now.

But that was the right thing to do.

Number two, they moved American soldiers closer to the front line in NATO, Romania and Poland.

I think that's good.

We do not want to have war between Russia and our NATO allies.

And we want to make it crystal clear to Putin that, God forbid, if there is a war in Ukraine, it does not bleed over into our NATO allies.

And then three, you know, we don't know exactly what they are planning, but as you just alluded to, President Biden has said many times on the record that if Russia does invade -- and let me rephrase that -- if Putin does invade, because the Russian people aren't invading and they have no real way to affect this decision, there will be the most comprehensive sanctions against Russian individuals, Russian companies, including Nord Stream 2.

And it seems to me, reading the tea leaves, is that we have a lot of agreement with our allies that we're going to do this in unison, not just us.

And we're going to do it immediately.

We're not going to negotiate about what sanctions to put in place for a period of weeks or months.

That was one of the things that dragged on in 2014.

Hopefully, it'll be a lot faster this time around.

>> There are indications that public opinion in Russia is not supportive of an invasion in Ukraine.

You've referenced a businessman with ties to the Kremlin, who was quoted in the New York Times saying, "If we have war with Ukraine and fratricidal death, then that will be all that [Putin] will be remembered for."

What do you make of this and other indications about popular sentiment being opposed to the war?

>> Well, I think it's there.

I think when business people are brave enough to say things like what Mr. Remchukov said in the New York Times, that reflects a much wider view among the business community.

Why if you do business in the West do you want this war?

I don't think there's a lot of support for this war.

I don't think Putin has explained why they need this war.

And hopefully, Putin is thinking about that, as well, as he makes his decision to go to war or not.

>> Do you think that matters?

How seriously is Putin considering popular opinion?

>> Ultimately, it doesn't matter because he's an autocrat and he doesn't face reelection and those kinds of things.

But he does care about his standing inside Russia.

He, you know, he's pretty obsessed actually with his opinion polls.

I don't want to exaggerate it, but I don't think it's trivial either.

I think it's one of the factors that he's probably considering.

>> In your book, "From Cold War to Hot Peace", you recognize that while you advocated for Russian democracy and integration into the West after the Cold War ended, quote, "Our efforts had failed" when Russia seized Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

At this point, as you look back, how do you reflect on the Russian reset and the criticism that it was naive?

>> Well, I'd say two things.

One, it wasn't naive.

We're going to agree to disagree on certain issues, but on issues that are of America's national interest as defined by us, we're going to engage with them as long as it's good for us.

And we got some things done.

We got the New Start Treaty, eliminating 30% of the nuclear weapons in the world.

We got the U. N. Security Council resolution for the most comprehensive sanctions against Iran ever in 2010.

And it ended not because of our naivete.

It ended for two reasons.

One, the protests we already talked about in Russia, where Putin became extremely paranoid that we were seeking to overthrow his regime.

And two, Vladimir Putin came back as president in 2012.

In fact, the day he announced that, in the fall of 2011, just a few days later, I was in to see President Obama, and I said, "You know, we've had a great run, but it's over."

And I think that's a good lesson for people to understand.

Even in the Russian system, leaders matter, individuals matter.

And the difference between President Medvedev and President Putin was pretty striking.

And that's why the reset ended.

>> You place in your book and in your analysis heavy emphasis on the fact that the arc of history doesn't bend towards justice in so much as it bends in the direction that its leadership takes it.

And you have said that Putin hasn't put in place enough for Putinism to last beyond his own tenure.

What will it take for those things which you have advocated for decades -- democracy and freedom in Russia and integration of the West -- to actually eventually happen if Putinism simply can't sustain itself much longer?

>> That's a great question, and of course I don't have an answer.

Political scientists aren't good at predicting the future.

By the way, neither is the CIA.

I learned that in the government, too.

But let me give you my best answer.

So you're absolutely right.

With respect to Russia, people look at a thousand years of history, of dictatorship, and they say, "Well, that's the way it was before, that's the way it will always be."

I don't believe that.

I've seen too many, you know, almost every country in the world was a dictatorship before it became a democracy.

But there's a lot of evidence in Russia.

After all, they have had mobilization for democracy very recently -- 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017.

And it must be having an effect because Putin has tried to kill the leader of that opposition.

His name is Alexei Navalny.

They tried to poison him.

And when that didn't succeed, he flew to Germany and then very bravely flew back to Russia, and they arrested him at the airport, and he sits in jail today unjustly.

He's a Russian.

He's got the same historical cultural background as Vladimir Putin does.

Think about how brave that was.

And think about how much they must fear him, that they arrested him and put him in jail.

And, you know, I don't know what's going to happen in the long term.

But Alexei Navalny's first job right now is to stay alive.

I know Alexei Navalny.

And, you know, he wants to be around for the long fight.

But he thinks there's going to be a long fight after Putin, and I think he's right.

And if you look deeper at public opinion in Russia, there's still a lot of support for Russia integrating to the West.

And the simple idea that we should pick our leaders in free and fair elections, there's a lot of Russians that support that.

So in the long run, I'm actually very optimistic that someday Russia will be a boring, like I said, boring, normal European democracy.

I just don't know when that long run begins.

>> With that, Ambassador Michael McFaul, thank you for joining me on "Firing Line."

>> Thanks for having me.

>> "Firing Line With Margaret Hoover" is made possible in part by... Robert Granieri, Charles R. Schwab, The Fairweather Foundation, the Asness Family Foundation, and by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, The Rosalind P. Walter Foundation, and Damon Button.

Corporate funding is provided by... Stephens Inc. and Pfizer Inc. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> You're watching PBS.