>> ros welcome to the oadcast. presidenobama is in rsia this evening. he met earliertoday in moscow with rsian presidentedvedev in an effort t res u.s./russia relaons. we tk this evening toenator richard lugar,he rankg publican on the sene foreign relations committee. >> i believe thaat least duringhe next feears, it is possible not only that the united states and russia will set an example by destroying weapons or disabng them wngrading nuclear merial and doing so really very steadi and with fullobservation o the world that will encourage oths too like wisend hopefuy discourage still oers from not getting into theusiness to begin with. but i do not see, at least within the next f years-- an that's always question of how

ma years--he idea a nucleafree world. >> rose: we continue our analysis with stephen cohen of w york university, a russian scholar, chrystia freela of the "financial tes", clae shipman of abc ns and thomas pickering, theeading american diplomat a former u.s. ambassador to russia d undersecretary of state for political affair >> we expanded nato we left the b.m. treaty, russia helped us win the ground w in afghanistan more tn any other couny in 2001 and 2002 and ve them nothing, we just expandedato and withdrew from the treatand the political class lookedt him and said "fool. weakling. we look like pushovers, we give; they take." that's why... that'she real issue of whatappened and is happeninin moscow. >> i think the big choice f russia still is thehoice that it fac in '89,'91, '96, 2000, which between democracy and pluralismnd authoritarianism.

and i absolutely do not see how peasing, plating this sort ofeo-imperialistic mood which putin has been very consously buildingp in any way plays to the positive sides of ssia. >>there's been a mieading for almost a decade of whatussia needed. there is a huge psyological component doling with russia as a fallen pire and i n't think very many of our leaders have gten it right almos since rold reagan in se ys. and i think what barack obama most needs to d is pay respect to russiain that sense. >> any treatmenby the united states of russia as second class is, i think, goi to hurt. i think it hurts nothing to treat em as first class partners. it'so question at all that in soviet days the ruians wanted to be partf a fir-class panership and the nuclear question i completely attuned to makin thatappen because there are no oer partners, at

least for e foreeable future. >> rose:inally, we take note of robert mcmara, the former secretary defense during the vietm war who died today age3. russ and the united states whene continue. captioning sponsored b rose communitions fr our studios in new york city, this is chare rose.

>> rose:e begin this evening with president obama's vis to moscow. today he and russi president itry medvedev announce a preliminary agement to cut nuclear stockpis by asmuch as a third. russia agreed to allow the uned states mitary t transport apons and troops across i territory into afghanistan. the two countries will set up a joint commsion to focus on a range of economic, energy, and terrorism issues. thsummit is part the president's pledge toreset the lationship withussia. and here's part of what the present and also the leader of russia said at thekremlin today. >> ( translated ):n the whole, by characterizing ourirst day of woras a result of negotiations that weave had, i would li to say that view them as a fist but very important step in the process of improvin full scale cooperation

between our two countries which should go to the benef of both states. d if bothtates benit by it, that means everybody will befit by it. i would like to emphasize in conclusion that our country would like to reach such a lel of coopetion with the uted ates which uld be realistically worthy of the 2t century. >> the presint and i agreed that the relatiohip between russia and the united states has suffered fm a sense ofrift. we solved to reset u.s./rulgs relationso we can cooperate more effectivelyin areas of common interest. today,fter less than six months of collaborion, wve done exactl that by taki concte steps forward on a range of iues. president medvedevnd i are committed to leaving bend the suspicion and rivalry of the past so that we can advance e interests that we hold in common.

>> rose: joininge now from shington, sator richard lugar, six-term republican senator and rankingepublican on t senate foreign relations committee. for over a dade, his voice on u.s. forei policy has bn a respected and steady one. i am pleased toave him ba on this program. welcome, sator lugar. od to have you, sir. >> tha you very much. eat to be with you. great to be with you. rose: what do yo make of thisgreement today and its pontial to start somethi serious with respect t arms reductn? >> i believe a of e agreements announced today ar ry important. t especially as it's been highlighd, the agreement f e treaty to be extended beyond december 5. and especiallythe inspections. the intrusive inspections that make it possible for some confidence to be with the russns and the united states as thow much we have, what we are doing with i, as well as the rest o the world be able to obsee that data. on the walin my conference

room, i'm able t record what th pentagon rerts each mon, how ny warheads have bee takingoff of missile, how many missile destyed, how many submarinesealt with or silo >> rose: president oba spoke to the drift in u.s./russian relations. the term "reset"as been used frequently. what's wrong with the relationsh that has to be fixed an is given the opportity because of the new leadship in whington as well ashe change in posions in russia? >> well, many scholars of public opinion haveimply noticed tha the united states was disapproved of me than approved of by average russians in variouspolls that were taken. maybe e feeling was t so concerted on our side, but the feeling was the part of many russians-- bh leaders and follers-- that essentially in our press for nato membership,

in our pres to t to have missile defense with which they disagreed...s a matter of fa, many felt unfriendly busine relatnships that across the board the united states after a pmising peod when theold war ended and many ssians saw the united states as a potential savior. their republic had taken now a very dim view of it and prime minist putin's popurity really came the fore as somebody who cld provide not only stability but oncenergy resourcecame ong, weal. and a very different kindf pensns that kept jobs going in company cities. so for all of ese reasons, t atmosphe has not been very good. leaving asi arm conol or military cooperation which, of course, termined after the georgian incidents o last august >> rose: what suld the

esident of the united states say to the preside of ssia about georgia and the ukraine and nato? >> those countries a dependent upon us and, of course, we could teinate that relationsp. we won't do tha,ut 'd like to have stronger ones. but nertheless, when push comes to shove, we're a long way from really discussing georgia and ukraine and a sensehat there is se agreement about thei status because from that standpoint itseems to mehe russian feeling is at there are many russian i both countries and russian intests in bh countries and these are likely to continue to b presse >> rose: do you underand the russian apprehensi abou nato expansn and their own sen that when yostart talking abougeorgia and the ukraine 's getting too clo to home? >> well, i understandt, i dot agree with it. thiss why i spect that there is rmor conversation. in oer words, russians may

emotionally, historically fl that this is stillussia. but after all, stalin came fro georgia, for example, and ukraine...he gates of kv and so forth are part of the music and hiory, the artistr of russia. but at the same time, iteems to me that the rsian perience is one in which cause of business retionships, hopefully bause of moreinterrelations, individu persons throughout the world, there are possibilities for a fferent kind of conversation. now, with regar toato, there was alwayshe possibility of ssia being a part of nato. that is a part of europe, a part of the security system. the russians for a variety of reasons havehosen not to make that a part of their history at this point. they still a very prd of their country. they appreciate on some days that theare no longer t

surpower that they might ve been. but at the same time, they lieve given the weaponshey havethe authority thathey have, thspace that the have that ty are differe and need to be considered that way. >> rose: where doou think the two countries can cooperate thimmediate future with respect to benefit for bot or for benet of the planet itself? >> well, in the agreemes ma today, and as i counted them i thk there were at least five, someelate to arms, that is both countries a going to destroy 34 ton of plutonium just as a gesture toet rid of the stf. but also in a very cooperative way, are going to inventory all of the countries tt have ghly enriched uranium and in many cas spent fuel fm exriments like atoms for pea in t past or oth occasions and cperate together to bring that fissile material back to

home of ogin. which very frequently is russia. the will be attempts to... on the part of both to downgrade a lot materials, so there is less fissile matial. we have a coon interest in making certain the scalled terrorists wheth they be chechen rrorists the rusans have been worried about or al qaeda who we ha been worried aboudo not get eir hands. and therefore there's going to beooperation expressed once agaiof greater inspections at the borders ofur twoountries so that this 95% of the fsile material, the world has not esped the two countries that have it at this point andcan ntrol it. there is liky to be cooperation on peaceful us of nuclear energy. energy banks that other countries mighutilize whout hang to gontonuclear velopment. and all thproblems that we are wiessing with the inians, for example. now, this is an agendahat still harks back to weapons and

nuclear and so for, butt the sameime, it's an oreach that involves my countries and, ke wise, some thoughts aut climatchange and the future. that is, ho is it possible for many nations to substute nuclea eney for fossil fuels if there is not is kind of cooperation beeen the united stes and rusa and very active fuel banks which we encourage. >> rose: in sunday's "new york times" there was a story about president obama en he was a student at columbia and thoughts that he had about nuclear proliferation. you have been out front of that. tell me what yo reastically lieve is psible. >> i belie thaat least during the ne few years it is possible not only that t united states an russia wl set an example by dtroying weapons ordisabling them, downgradin nuclear merial and doing really vy steadily

d with full observation ofthe world that will encourage others to do like wise and hopefuy discourage still otherfrom not getting to the businessto begin wi. but i n see-- at least thin the next few years, and that's always a qution of how many years-- the idea of a nuclear-ee world. even as i sit with m friend sam nunn and with george schultz and wit bill rry and henry kissinger, you know, they hav different views as ectly what we're looking . they tk about sort of encampments the base of the mountain in other words, ople looking up towardhe sky but the peak of the mountn is sort of in a cloud,t's not very clear how you get the, and trefore we're a preparatory state with thesease camps which a lot of good activity is ocrring. it would bnecessary if you're going to scale the mountain. >> rose: so might as well get

something going ev though you're not sure exactly how lo and whe the journey will take place? correct, on the basis thait would be desirable f the wld to be fr of the threat of nuclear weapons. in much the way that we have con to that conclusion with rard to chemical weapons. chemical weapons convtion-- which e united states signed and the russians may have been surprised, but they moved on. like wiseecame a pa of that. and in our cperate i threat reductions, a lot of reductions ve been in the chemil area so they'vead sizable oblems. >> rose: what don't you agree with withrespect to the nunn/kissinger/schultz gro. >> simply at there are a lot of count these are not aboard at all. a person of comm sense would say he were philosophizing about a nuclear-free world but then at the sa time we're wonderg will we ever get into

negotiatns with the leadship of iran. anhow about north korea? d what seemeto be almost weekly missile tests wit the thought that some time there mighbe somethinglse on those ssile. and fuher more we are not reallyertain about various developmts in other countri. occasionally the's a breakthrough, was libya and moamma qaddafi finally shipping it allver to oak rge, tennessee, and we've had some good breaks inouth africa in the pastwith a progrn brazil that di't get off the grou. but 're not overconfint, particularly in the middle ea, as is often expreed. that if in persists, that other cntries-- at least protecting their o security-- willlso begin to dabble in e problem even as we are redung. >> re: i interviewed last wee aspen, lorado, former cretary of state james baker who sa the followin he gives very hi marks to president obama foreign

policy, has serious differences about his economic policy. and you? >> well, i suspect would track along much t se trail. i think at the amount of expenditure representedot only in the stimulus package,in the so-called rp program, the scue of the banks a so forth but ev in the budget that we now have and the one we e considerg, a budget that some estimate will have $1.6 trillion deficit, or maybe even $1.8 trilliofor that matter. ery one of those dollars has to be borrowe from somebody. if you try to borrow that much money in the united states, interest rat would spike a that would be very bad with regardo our economic recery d our jobs. so we have bome very dependent upon cna and its reserve, pan ruia, for that matter. large treasury bond buyer. quite apartrom european and

panese sources, which have en regulars. trillions ofollars now held by these couries. and from time time, they tk about is there ather way to balancour porolios? so that we are not so involved in the dollaand the event someing would happen. foexample, ilation in our country brought abt by these budgs. now, i uerstand the president's point ofiew is you've g maybe one shot at this. you're popul, you've got momeum, clearly health care needs to be solved, climate change is out there, lots other thgs, railroad perhaps. and soyou go fort. but in going for it, we may be taking on s many obligations at this becomes frightening to a person like me just looking at e score card. >> rose: and on reign poli? >> on foreign polic, this have proceed in a much mor orderly way and i complimen the president for his collections of secretary clinto secretary gates, general jim jones.

like we, a remarkable emissaries such as dk holbrooke and ou former colleague george mitche and others t supplement that. usually administrations co in and they tak a little time to get peop behind the desk in the stateepartment or in the department or in treasy. and this administrion has done a little better than some oers but ere is still aot of empty spac. just beginning t get into t ambassadorships. but they moved rapidly wit a team of people appointed and who were ae to work together, even though eacone of them are big hitter and s i compliment the present and his people upo their travels, their contacs, and like wise it sms to me a very stabl situation of good sense as they ve approached each of these tough objectives. >> rose: senator richard lugar, ranking minorit member of the united states senateoreign relations commite. back ia moment. stay with .

>> rose: we continue our conversati about russia with stephen cohen of new york university, chrystia freeland of the inancial times" fro washington, aire shipman of abc news a thomas pickering, former u. ambassador to russ. i am pleased to havell of the here i begin withambassador pickerg in washington. what mig... what will accomplished in moscow? >> i think wt we will see here are prably theirst steps in what we all hope wille a comi togetherrather than a drifng apart, which w characteristic of probablyhe last cade or so in u.s./russianelations, centerpieced around theuclear agreement that they all hope to haveone by the end of the ar. buwith a nber of the oer things that have been added to it, including i would add perhaps reminisnt of mytime inoscow a management

rangement for t u.s./russian regulationships that brgs gether the two predents in charge of an arrangement where thsecretary of state and the minister oforeign affairs of russia wl actuall perhaps some do somef the whiplashing. but much like the cheer know mere din arrangement which was characteristicf the yeltsin clinton riod. >> rose:oing ngor ward, resetting the relationship means what? just simply change? does it mean that there were these bad tngs that th have to f? from my perspective, charlie, itmeans replacing what was a series of anincreasing crcendo of basically negatives rping, sniping, cutting on both sides over whole set of issues in which there were emphasis placed the dierence. some of em genuine an very real and some of them long term but with almt no positive agenda. the obama administraon has started ouwith a nuclear disarment issue whichis, i think, of highnterests to th

sides and certain one that's brought em more rapidly together. but the sense here is the stragy is i think to accentuate the positive. we can borrow a term, and fd ways tuse that to help coain some of the natives that have been part ofhe relationshi to see whethe in fact, thing can go better rather than worse than ey have before, recnizing these that the two countries hold 95% of the world's nuclear weapons, they could threaten each other, probab the oy two countriesthat can threaten each other in very serious way and could really tear up the landscapvery badly if the situation deteriorated to the int where they were at swords drawn over a whole set quesons that separated them rather than to coopera in a whole set of issues which i thinquite ghtly can brin them together as the foreign nister said just over t weekend when he s interviewed the subct. >> i think there smart to start with nuclear darmament becaus as ambasdor piering said, it plays to the ruians'

sense to the days of the superpower relationship. i think the nflict could be in a couplereas. if we had another war like the war in georg it's very hard to accentua the positive as ambassador pickeri was saying. an in fact, joe biden possibl es his job to the war in georgia. so it really hasad a direc impact on obama. i the other big area which i just an unknown is how the whole putin/medvedev relatnship playout in rusa and how the fall in the ice of o plays out in russia. russia actuall is in quit a agile place in terms of its inteal politics. and dependin on how th plays out, you couldave rsia behaving in ways in which this happy reset whe we're talking about areas ofhared interest, not focusing too much on what's going on insidein russi is st impossible to continue th. >> rose: stepn cen's book is lled "soviet face and los

alternatives, from sta inism to the new wold war." ousoon, i think. >> now, immediely. >> rose: where is russia in its n sort of evolution and history and moment? standing between east d we with a ferocious struggle under y within its political class abou which way it should and couldo and inart that's what ts summit is about, r the rues. >> so talk to me about the divion. is. >> the division is the russian potical class belies generally-- ani use the words that of th medvede and putin-- at it has been repeatedly betyed and deceived by the united stat since the end the soviet union. that leads lar segment of the russian political cls to decide that russia is unwanted in the west. the west will never meet russia's natiol interest or accommodatrussia, and that russia has eager strategic partners in e east. theast means everywhere from iran to cna, possibl india

and beyond. there is sti a small but longer strong o-western/pro-american facti in the political learship that hopes that won't happen. t in my judgment, it all depend owhether or not a real reset comes about and i've see nothing at's happened so far i moscow this first day that suggests otherwise. >> rose: so what ds this president have to to allayor at least speak to these russian concerns and/or fears. >> onehing: stop the expanse of nato toward georgia and ukraine. th's it. do tt and everythinwe want we get. >> rose: picng up on tt and talking about yo time in moscow andhe journalistsou lked to in moscow who are reporting onivisions and where you think that country going and what they need in orderto be assud to move forward,laire. >> wl, i think sphen's exactly right. and i would add one other thing that... u know, to scrap any

id about a misleefense stem in poland and czechoovakia. i think th of those things-- that and the nato expansion-- have pre-occupiedussia in a way that w just did not understand in this country. and i think there's bn a misreadingor almost a decade of wt russia needed. there is a huge psychological mponent to dealing with russia as aallen empire. and i don't think very my of our leaders he gotten it right. almost sin ronald reagan in some ways. ani think wt barack obama most nds to do isay respect to russia in thatsense, but i'm not sure that u can pull back... pull the russian people back to th sort of pro-america stance that theyad when t viet union fell apart. i think it's going to be very rd. for long time putin has been slowly winning over t population with almost a tacit agement, if you wl.

you submerge any political inclinationsou have and i will try to make you rich. as cystia pointed o, we don't ow where that's headed now that oil prices hav dropped. and th isertainly unrtain. but for the tim being, i think barack obama... it's a ta ordeto reset this relatnship >> welli would respectfully very strongl disagree with the notion that putng an endo nato aspiratns for grgia and ukrainis the right russia policy or slowing down too much on a stronger engagement with eastern europe first of all, russia licy is not just about russia. it's about thehole former soviet sce and while i think it is ablutely right toay the relationship wit russia and in fact, russia's whole political developmt has gone quite badly wrong. actual,astern europe and rts of the fmer soviet union anr a tremendous success story. and think amecan policy has

to have that very firmly in mind and be very careful no to give uphose successes. t the second point i would make is i don see the conflict in. i don't see russia's choice aseing so much a choice of being betwn east and we. the big choi for rsia still is the choice it faced in' 89, '91, '96, 2000, which is betwee democracy and pluralism and authoritarnism. and i absolutely do not see how appeasing, placating this sort of neoimperialistic mood which putin has been very consciously building up in any way plays to the positiv sides of russia. >>putin's not theroblem. i mean, if putin disappeared tomorrow tngs would not change. pew stin a manestation of a mo and a reaction. rystia uses the word "appsement." i don't consider ito be

appeasement when a nation says "we don' want mitary bases on ourorder," pticularly military bases tt represent a country with whiche've just conducted a0 year col war. that's n about appeasement, it's about somethinglse. the expansion of nato has bee a castrophicistake in every regard not a sile country safer. let me just e by sayg this. what happened last august 2008 which we calle the war between russia a georgia inthat little province of georgi was also a proxy american/russian war. right on russia's borders. nothinlike that happened during theold war. two couries laid thin nuclear apons are suddenl fighting on ones border. in our history never. that's whathe expansion of nato brought you. it's a bomb waiting to go off. itoes off a small way in georgia anit can goff again. >> i do agree very mh with

chrystia's point that thiss in view a strife contest between modernizers and outreachersr rermers a the old nationists on the other. we see evidence of that all e ti and the trick for obama is not to go io that pticular set of argument s himself try to find ways that can emphasize things that generally speaking the russians themselv are interest because it takes t curse off the nato expanon and i generally tend to agreeith see the stephen on some of that. i think that was unwise and badlput forward. i've been in russi many times d heard the expensive litany of from pin of all of the betrayals and ihink some of very much worthile listeng to. it's something obamaill have to do. t obama can put on the table some things which we c move forward on issues tha aref common interest, wch is the oppositef what the rusans have perceiv to be the u.s. aproch up until n.

and that means two things. it mns we need to undpromise and overliver and thers some of that going on now. iteans at the sameime we ve to keep our word on what it is that we inten to do when we move into things and the russians had a complete imprsion that we were not going to move eastward d then when we moved etward that we were not goingo set up bases and then after tha i tnk they gave up. similarly we we going to put bases in cenal asia for as long as we were afghanistan but they neverxpected we'de in afghanistan, what, now a total ofalmost seven years sohere are serious things that have to beleared uphere between the u.s. andussia. we have serious problems on our side as well. the russians aren't angels thhistory of this. but the lue of the reset it it can put theeset aside, can creatend deal with new issues that have to bdealt with and i hope there can be talks of frank variety frankly on some of thes

issues particularly havinto do with the disputes abroad ich i thinkare nevergoing tobe reconcil entirely but in which we can at least have enough discussiono have a broadrea common disagreent if i can put it this way tt's broad undersnd. we don't yet now i think even knowhe depth of the fling o both sides onany of these issues. i suect the president is gng to get some ofhat when he has brkfast tomorrow morning with prime minister putin. >> i do think that one... that barack obamaan put asi certn issue without having to ve them up. he doesn't have to declare that nato expansion is over there's no need topush the issue right now. that's where i think fisse can make a hugeifference. i also think it will be really intesting. you were aing about what people inoscow were talking about and journalists and a lot of my frnds who are still there haveeen focusingn the mystery, the current mystery i moscow, wh is rely in charge. think we all ow basally

it's pun, bu thereave been some reay intereing divergencelatelybetween medvedev and putin and me talk and some peoe have en been writing out min clashes, if you will. medvedev seems to beoving in a slightly more liberal direction, talking about rorming the judiciary, shortening one laer's sentence, a ucos lawye surprisingly. making moves...iving interviews to liral up in bus making moves that are decidedly unputin lik. and i think navigatg that terrain for rack obama is ing to be something of a chalnge as well becse i don't even think ty know in moscow exactly what's going o. rose: explain tos the relaonship between where it's heed and putin andmedvedev. >> throughout russian history bureaucrats have looked tohe kremlin as the seat of power. d medvedev sits in the kremlin. and they don like this bause they don't know whe rear end

to kiss beuse that's the y thsystem works. do i line up with him o him? he saithis, he said that, what am i supposed to think they don't like that uncertainty but again it's reled... claire's been silt on this i go to the bank on this or there's proundivision within the russian pitical class out whether or not to try to in the west. mae there is no east forhem go to. maybe bassador pickering is right. but the think there is. th's the important thing. and medvedev and putin are surround by men who represent different point of vie. >> rose: if ty went to the east, what would that mean? >> it means theyever join the w.t.o., which, by the way, pin said they wouldn't. they will t go throughith these arms control agreements because the military is completely against them they will not be interted in a pan-european secury system and theyill move decively to divide ukrai intowo provinces.

and they are the largest suppliers of weapo from china, india, lots of countrs want them, we don't want them to sell them amore. there's an enormous appete and mark in non-nato countries for russian haware and noow. that's allhey got. that how thaw make their money. at the moment, they've been tremendous reytrained by why be rtrained if the americans don't want them? >> rose: ambassadorickering? >> a real test will whether in fact outof all of this there n be more cooration on a veryifficult problem like ir especially wit the messiness in iran ovethe last two or three weeks and,ndeed, how that's thrown i tnk a hand gren grenade in the mile of the efforts of thebama administraon to try to deal with iran. although i adre the ministration for continuing try to kee the door open to conversations. i ink they're important regardss of what has gon on inside iran, but that's n an easy rd to hoe here at home.

i think fally the question will be also extremely important once agreements are reached whetr they could be sold here domestically there's no question there will be opposion, although 60 votein the senate are ve important in selling agements and i would suspt that plus president obama's renown skills at explaining thin and portraying em in the ways i think pple can understand and attach themselves to are very, very importa aspects of what's, i think,ver e next year will determine whether thiss indeed a al reset or wheth it isust a bl on the way with further nasty and confrontational aspects the relationship to come. i hope against hope it's not. i ink it's impornt to have a reseand i'm quite pased with what i s today in the wk coming out of the summit and certainly we'llhave another look at it after tomorrow. what i wanted to suggest charlie is we' been lking at and trying to figure outussia

through eological prisms, is it east versus west, reformers versus traditionalist d i think one thing we can't lose sht of is ainancial and an economi prism. russia is governed by men who have very powful very luke a vested personal ierests and those areeally important drivers what happens. ssia as a country isvery uncertain d unclear as to what its global role is going to be in this emerging econo. when oil was at $100 it didn't matter becse that sort of washed through and everythg woed. but ev at $70, it's t so great fo russia. and it was a very interesng mome when they recently convened this suit of the brick countries and you had the other brick countries saying, you kn what? maybe it should the big countries. maybe russia doesn't really belong here. i think that uncertaty about how russ is going to ce economically in the fute is

thcentral driver and really pls a role in russia's con commit tonight dire to expre self on the world ste. rose: and its nfidence? >> and its confidence. >> rose: they sometimes talk about grand bargainwith reect to russia andhe anti-msile system. is tt possible? is that reasonable? isthat a direction that's fertile? >> i think it's certainlywhat russia wants. that what i was going to say. i think to get russia play on iran, russia'soing toook for something big beuse i think everybody assumes...we've done this dance so many times, the yilt lookingor sport on iran from rush shalt and you have to ask at a person pointdoes russia reallwant to play this game? do they really wt to help on iran the way we d i mean if iranis ultimately solved and in and the united states suddenly form some sort

of relationsh, that leas russia a little bit out in the cold and not nearly as much of a power broker. so you hav to question just how much rsia wants thato ppen. yes, russia lives a dangerous neighborhood. yes we assume india, paktan, china, the last thing they want is a nuclear iran but at the sameime they might not want to inst their capital in getting there. so i think they'd looking f something big and i think that... do think missile defee or some sort of a tacit agreement about nato and something about georg i think they're going to be pusng all of those things ich i kw will see less tn palable probab to this administration. bu i thinkissile defense could be on the tabl, sure. >> don't forget tension wh iran does tendto push uphe price of oil which is not something counter russia's interest. >> ros exactly and they've made that point. the ambassador is laughing. well, go ahead, i'll come to

steve in a minute. it's true sompeople speculate the a conspiratorl way that russia is pleased to see the development of tension between iran and the rt of the world and ybe a bit of destabilizing because it phes up the price of oiland therefore it will enure their enomic advantage and theirgeopolitical power. ambassor pickering, is that ue? >> there may be some element to that. certaiy if you've just gone through the roer coaster fm $147 down to below $40 a while, you've got to see that. also if ople are worried about a solid cohesion inthe east, the one country is not going to be very happy about ts is china. increasingly heavily dependent on imported oil where ice makes a bigifference and where in fact th've en trying to scope out for emselves oil fiel where they might have greater control in the long-term future. so some of this is adding to the me as well as maybe briefly

adding to ssian confidence. the queson of oil pricess ov a ng period of time in my view isomething where stability on all sides, bot oducers and consumers, would fd a great deal of interest if th could move thplss inhat direction. t at the moment it seems so millenal that i don't think anybody will really take par in that kind of an approach. but you've got cartelhat appantly is devoted in some ways to trying to keep prices up. but within reason so maybe ove a peod of time stability would be something to talko the russia about as a way of also finding an eort to give them a sense that their economy shouldn't be ring a rler coaster as well. maybe we suld be working wit em more closely on things like vestment and developme in things otherhan the petroleum economy they he a lot of brht people a lot of capability, high tech informatn based systems and things of that st certainl are the wa of the fute. there's no reason wh russia

should be left out of that. >> rose: wha don't we understa about putin? >> we don't uerstand about putin l kinds things. the most important is the very, ve interesting set of nversations you've had about who's on top and who in a sense is going to emerge. i think the one thing that wasn't mention in that but ses to hang around is that putin is on platform where he'll stayith a very clear idea that he may welcome bk after whatever number of years it is that presidt medvedev has to serve because he wasoo young when he left office and this is a way in which in fact he's kept hisand in, maintained a very significant amnt of control over the process and ll emerge at the end of theay with a good bit of his popularity still intact. i thought i wasascinating while he continues to maintai some sious popularity in russiahe along with ahmadinejad in poll i saw just a few minutes ago were at the boom of the heap

interinternaonally now, that y not war areryr. putin, i suspect itoesn't in some way but looking at the longer tm future, it would still appear to me frothe way in whi the balance is being appreciated by most o us outside of rusa and many inside russia, a large number of yearsn the future for mr. putins still very much an important factor we have to keepn mind. >> re: wouldyou be surprised if i to you that durg his first three or four yea in power putin was openly referred to aan appser in conducting foreign polies of munich towards the ited states? >> rose: that would surprising. but you think aut what happed. we expaed nato. weeft the a.b.m. treaty, russia hped us win the ground wain afghanistan morehan any other country in 2001 and 2002 and we gave them nothing. wexpanded nato and withdrew from the treat and the political class looked at him and said "fool. weakling. we look like pushovers. gave; they take. and thas why. that's the

real issue owhat happened and is happening in moscow. i wish you'd ask me other question. whh was what are we not emphasize organize missinghere? >> rose: okay, what are we not emphasizing missing here? >> (laughs) i didn't know chaie was that easyo control. >> i'm aitioning for his positi here. but not well. i can only d iton on subject he can do it on every subject. we're not understding, in my judgment... this is myiew in the book how deeply the relationsh, our relatnship withussia is in crisis and how dangersly. d that this relationship has come to a turning point and therefore one way or another president obama is goi to py historic ro for better or worse. >> rose: so the bal is in his cour >> in pt. and this ishere i sound unpatriotic. but believe we more th any party creed this mess and therefore the first step to get out of this mess ha to be taken in washington.

not moscow. no the prevailg view of the american mia and the american political establiment-- though have to say to his credit ambassador pickerin has hinted thiss not entire thease-- but e prevailinview is that thrussians have to makethe positive steif we want to get along. that's ctainly not the view i ha that. >> rose: that doesn't seem like the mind-set of esident obama, either. >> youaven't asked us what the administration has cone. to mmind it's been extmely discouraging. they've donewo things that literallshocked me. first of all, ey sent o the numberne person onnational security council, miael mcfall, to sayhat notng's openor notiation. now this was fun to me bause i'm old enoughto remember when wesed to joke dung the col war that a the soet position was what ours is ours and what yours... and yourss up for negoation. we're now taking the pition, the ings that the russis care abo we have said before obama nded in mosco are not

on the negotiating table. what's there to talkabout? d the other thing, and ts is where the drama goes back to your putin queson. who in the world-- andhus it s a slip-- told president obama to speak negatively o putin on h way to moscow they gave him bad aice. >> rose: the administtion's titude, as much as you kno om all the people that y talk to in washingn, how they vied this and their attitude towards first russia second medvedev and third putin. >> i think that the administration understands that ssia is important. and i think tt the very fact that they're tking about needing to reset this relationship and that this trip ca ahead of a trip to china, for example, heartening. and i thi it shows that the know lot of wor needs to be done. ani do this that if anybody can listen to all of... all sides and all of the difrent things tha he ll hr and

take it in and do somethingith it, it is probly barack obama. heill be good at listening t putin. he's going to see gorbachev, too and believe me, he's going t hear t same thing fm gorbachev. i think everything stephen i saying is right. we just have no... we have no idea in this country how many years russia has felteally abandoned by the united states. i will ner forgetjust watchingorbachev's face years ago at t malt summit when he... bush senior told him what thbig plans that the united states had fussia were, which was basally nothing and no mey and no aid. and i think it... it has seemed that way l along. but i sll am not convinced. i mean, i think tha they know it's important. but i'm still not convinced that they knowhat they want to get out of it. yes, the nuclear agreements are critical. but there's still, i thi, a sensof sayingness about what the uned states rlly fee

needs or wants fro russia. and i don't think that's bee defined ye again, there's a lot of talk about iran, i'm not s sure russia is a paner inran. and beyondhat i think they're just not sure and thas probly not going to help. >> rose:ambassador pickeng, terms ofistory, will the period right after the collapse of the wallnd the soviet union disintegrang all e way through the beginning of the iraqi ware viewed in history as a gat lost opportunity for the ited states to do a l to engage russia? create confidence? provide a much better world? >> that's not, i thi necessarily a slam-dunk conclusion. it was no question at all that we told stories during that peod of time of peoplenot knowing w to take basically a

commist system and turn it in something el. was just no cle sion of how to do it. the was no question at al that people di't want to dump fantastic quantities ofoney on the problem. therwas no question at all that therewere seous problems in russia adjusting to this particular set o changeshat i think is still part of what's going on. russia is still, i thi, in trble seekingwhatit's kind of future of itself is and gng to be. but there was no question atll that there was a time of trsition and some people may ca it a time of realroubles. there were no questions at that thearly years of the 90s were very hardon many individual russians who were stggling to find aay to stay alive in a ve difficult set of circumstances as one system collapsed d the oth did not come fward to replace it. i think anybody who had a andiose view that there was silver bullet a that all we

had to do was tout that in operation and that in fr or five years everying would be changecertainly missedhe whole nature of the situation at th time an the whe set of difficultieshat everybody had. andcertainly there were huge problems of serious embarrassmt in rush shachlt people had sn themselves and been psuaded that they were at the top of t heap, ctainly real competition with the united states in many, many ways. anthis all fell away in a radical fason and t them in a very, very difficu set of circumstances. and there were people in t end of the '90s talking about t russian economy being the size of hgary, at least in terms of its attraction of foreign dect investment and oth kinds of things. so this n't over yet. i think what wre seeing is the latest manifestatn of this continued struggle for change and a continued serious eort to find out wha happened. now, let just address one ing that you had raid. e notion that, in fact, in six monthsussian public attitud

toward the united statest the top at least turned fr very an tagist inic to what i would cl at least partly resent sieve a serious unrstoodcation that something changed. itwasn't just the u.s. election and i think it wn't just necessily the persuasive capacies of the president, although tho shouldneverbe underestimated. but there was also, i think, an outreacht the begiing of this period thataid "here are a whole bunch of items that can be put on th agend that need to be addressed" and i think those were part of the sum a substance of the cversation at that president had in lon doith president medvedev and they have made aifference. and i was surprised, quite frankly, as i read ove the statements tt were issued toda how much more forward aning they had been than what we had seen over a long period of te in the past. now, ts is not in my view necessarily an iron-clad commitment to the future direction with no swiveling or anging, much more has to be done and much re has to be

delivered. t it is iny view muc more posive than i expected and i read the newspers over the weekd and much more positive than a number of cmentators of note in theewspapers were predicting the situation would be today. >> re: last word to you. >> i was gng to say two things quicy. i do think it's a big mistake t gi into this notion that somehow the ways in which russia has gone wrong a ameri's fault. ultimatelythese are russian-de problems. i think there was on reallyig licy mistake by america and that was supporting, at least implicitly, the loansor shares giveaway of the natal resources to a very sll group ofligarchs. and i think the public resentment that th creed is a much more powerl driver of putis popularity than a of this anti-western seinement maybe in closing, my ansr to your question about wh we don't understand about put is what is re important to him: wer or money? and my favite line from my

russian iends about shim that the tragedy o putin is heants rule like stalin but live likebramovitch. >>ose: on that a thank you very mh. thank you. ephen cohen'sook "viet ith and lost alternative fm stall inism to the new cold war" where he emphasizes the ideas he pressed. aire shipman, thankou. ambaador pickering, thank you. i ok forward to more conversations about the glal zero commissn of which you are a member anda stepby step pl to eliminate nuclear weaps by the year 030 ank you all. >> thank you vy much. >> rose: when w come back we'll take note of robert mcnamara who died today, age 93, washington. >> re: robert mcnamar died today at his homein washington. he was 93 he served a secretary of defense r seven years under

president keedy and president johnn. his ten-year span, the bay of pigs invasn, theuban missile cris and the escalation of the vietnam war. lar in the week we'll run a larger appreciation with clips of his appearancon this program but for now,his brief excerpt robert mcnara on our program. >> i believeoday tha hoe ho ch minh was not a follower of stalin and kruschev, which i ought he was at time. he was a tito, he was an asian to. believed the war in south vietnam was t a warf foreign aggression. i beeve it was a civil war. believe that it was the power of nationalism ttas at stake there. at i believe under tho circumstances no foreign army can substitute for the pple of that count decidg a civil war themselves. it's impossible. w, these beliefs, they may

seem obvious to you. they wer't obvious to m five years ago. >> rose:obert mamara deadat age3. captioning sponsored by rose communicatis captioned by dia access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org