200 Years; Russia

from communication center the university of texas at austin this is two hundred years in the year nineteen seventy six the american republic celebrates its two hundredth anniversary as a part of the us bicentennial program at the university of texas at austin two hundred years explores the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society mrs rex we're for two hundred years this week we will be talking about russia the superpower appeal around of a delicate balance for world peace our panelists include edward to barsky professor of government at the university of texas at austin said name on us professor of slavic languages of the university and edward hulett assistant professor of economics at ut austin let's begin by considering one of the most recent efforts a formal agreement among some of the nations of the world the helsinki agreement what was the significance our lack

of significance of the actor as the case may be and the soviet union's specific participation and less hard work not that the barsky well i don't think that they're helping indication that might be good or let it get much better think because so i believe since the development of the declarations mean you're a little you have had them before what we have to look for on the easter island than the words especially when the soviet union is gone so what was your reaction i basically agree with that or skiing i think it has some importance of the kind of importance that they are one might say well in the words from roche full cost of the bid they have the tribute that i spaced a virtual through hypocrisy that the place is full of acknowledgement of the existence of virtue and in that sense i think it has some poor

some economists look at the stop to get some economists pointed to those really terrible scenarios to the agreement now most are the issues which are now important nice to a stranger rather technical highly complex issue in negotiations and pronouncements of the level of helsinki agreement really don't address themselves those issues all the attendant in some cases that i think we saw those major issues we have a long road of negotiations well you know one of the great problems in this country at least so much as it was but long before world war two websites and i remember getting a shoeshine years ago in a local establishment in a man who was about seven years old at the time had to say give me the advice what we need to do right now go and beat the russians of course it's in the years old and didn't involve am so i gave him some advice of

puzzling bit different but that particular issue just represents what we've heard time and time again shall we have a conflict with russia or can we get along with the ussr and we've had a tremendous number of words dealing with this week would be a roll some id stay peaceful coexistence camp david and its particular spirit and jimmy of that several such a number attempts at trying to discredit of course the top has been a popular one of those figures but no more than a household word for these four years it has been in the forefront of the sort of the timing now i have there are there may be heretical view of the atlantic at least for many americans because i do not really differentiate very much between them it done peaceful coexistence and cold war because of the soviet union is an as always be after one thing to increase the communist influence

in the world now using methods short of war and that was caught or richmond psychological warfare without that simply unleashing a global conflict especially if a nuclear war these focus than a century the same thing that we must live peacefully side by saying not that engaged in a war but again we will compete and there we were tried to gain influence and death on his i would say another big initiative for peaceful coexistence and i don't think i don't see much difference and the trouble is acting with people in america here that that they jump through foreclosure in the sand and they always hope for something which it kennedy cause i think i think they don't have something special session with and that was it was a signal that the administration was going to undertake an attack on civilian maybe undertake some new some new initiatives in the area of improving both political and economic relations on the other hand the reality of what turned out comedic timing and

in a much different in peaceful coexistence i think that it is true that many americans jump to the conclusion that they'd have meant much more than a turnip mean but of course i think that richard nixon and henry kissinger can carry a good deal going for that over optimism on the part of americans i i i think that the word is interesting names and stringing relaxation but the unusual originally referred to a ball straying off the ball and you see how our care current terminology his father of modern december means we think of very old fashioned turn your instrument bow but over time it also came to maine and the parking ramp talking a weapon and that's a rather ominous meaning that i think people started using it were quite aware of what you say words have a way of catching up with people who use them i would agree with

the forest humid hewitt that the basic situation has not changed that they can't did that signal on some effort on that we started using the word first and it signaled an initiative on our part to try to order the situation somewhat but it did it arouse and unrealistic expectations i think the time has long passed in probably never really existed when americans could realistically think in terms of going over there been anybody up a preemptive a preemptive strike this is wishful thinking he is a preemptive strike is really not in the cards i don't think it ever really was inspired him mr william board people were threatening to school reward the situations are men the same the threat of war is is an element in the dover on both sides and the real threat of war lies in the fact that not that either side in cannes war but that the maneuvering itself had become so complicated

and acquire such evidence that war may come in spite of the desires of both sides speaking of war and there's a danger i know one idea about this are certainly the soviet union at the moment and threw for as long as we can see related we keep balance of power and the inclination you made your but at the same time there are some bear we called the way which means our leaders told the way that it was the soviet union i have in my voice of the korean invasion scalia a leader that when he came to that point that the software is beyond the bank failed us defense which exactly what the edges and then said then for show of blended businesses in cuba only after he gave them the conclusion when that nay of pigs fiasco and all that that he can do it with

impunity and so sometimes it be going till in that way they come for the weekend that is this without action in bringing the world close to the disaster and acting are people of the miracle of his ability in the brinksmanship that was practiced during the us now are administered from the secretary of state south dallas is the time i could recall was a very dangerous kind of going far country would do so well in that there were a miscalculation i think especially there were an element of bluff in the thing that we really ought to keep them guessing sometimes but it needed regulation when i got the market i am and as some in an open statements and they missed may be interpreted by some weirdly this cheery

as a signal that they can go ahead without actually getting any major resistance on our part and so i don't need to be brinksmanship but that certainly we ought to make it crystal clear to the hallways that we mean business and then when we say for instance it work even so the fine goal that we are in a debate it up with a broad they will waste on something and then we don't finish it i'm always fully either we needed and we just thought that we must finish it know it though it takes all we should strive at all the same would be the day of the innovation in the nation and he starred in the first day but if it was then they should have been finished probably that when the russians do when there's that sound there were of course i think one of the one of the difference is more than my services so he knows there's more than one way in the united states there is a great deal plurality and i'm not sure we're sure we mean business right now we don't know and henry kissinger i think wishes

sometimes you were the soviet minister for the first because the american or different waste of the austrian part of the austin and i think it was because we have we have is that sometimes actively now literally have to strike more in a foreign policy crisis we don't have the resolve a single minded result we used to have money that's going away internally as a democracy but for conduct of foreign policy is ben adler says his theory to be change for the sake of it because of my one demographer and one a dictatorship reading some more restrained in some more consensus where i think there's been a real problem here in the sense that this state department and leadership in the state department has consistently felt the disadvantage of public pressures the kind of public pressures that are inevitable in a democracy and has consistently felt hamstrung by the often unpredictable ways in which this

public pressure gets brought to bear on the other hand it has consistently fail in what i would consider to be the educated role of the foreign policy establishment in a democratic country there has been no no attempt not even within the state department really i mean on and on any level let alone for the public at large to reevaluate american foreign policy some of the basic assumptions that were held in may not have been corrected the time but they that there was at least some reason to think that they might be so some of the some of the reasoning behind it containment policy for example has really got to be reexamined it just doesn't hold true and more and i think it obviously doesn't hold true on the other hand some basic conceptions of the other side are really not known to the man for example what they mean by war of national liberation they say they made them what they really mean when they use the strange sort of chinese vocabulary of there's a heavy set phrases that they

apply in certain circumstances no we don't have come apart of the state department in spite of mr kissinger's professorial background of of educating the public inform policy where i would have to take and the defense a little bit because i know his fifth and that they have been sending a lot of information over a few days i did for instance a list with a speech or a statement a foreign policy on the law of the sea on the town on this and that they try to holder some meetings they said just so that their people would go out and speak to an mit university this and that trying your knowledge are because they are very much aware of a hostile public reaction to a policy response in recent times i believe the real fall is in the state department or even the security really need b

but i think it's an invasive this politicking i would say was you have the that any anyone who wants to meet elected though re elected at field business or below and then he said that he remains endemic that you know the reason we can get away with that is because people are not educated enough to make intelligent foreign policy decision the state department working with instead of having this attitude that we know better than you which for gm to get angled for example in angola state department for a long time that the soviets were heavily involved in the law didn't let us know because it in one of sense and upset the chances for daytime i think if they had been working in an intelligent public that was really really able and capable of being involved foreign policy promises to be no way the candidates to make silly statements about they can get away with they're painted week for summer press <unk> a minute visit him and it's done in this conflict but suppose that that that it wasn't the question will attend them on the situation and by doing before didn't walk for two appearance

on the world and i think simply you if you're educated intimate way the issues straight look here this is what they wanted to say in forty seven boys a controversial method supported and that the world still the object and i think that the american public has more than enough material to be informed on television and sixty minutes rhode island's i'm on education and check all those magazines you had mentioned in information i think that it simply isn't so sullivan empathy you find among a broad segment of the american people would you say that the state department or was say kissinger the administration wherever we put the finer made any attempt before and go look to find out the

tenor of the american public to find out what kind of support they would receive that they engaged in as mrs government to a street and you talk about you know the secretary of state of communicating to the public there's also the public after the senators they have a responsibility to find out of a field tech to vietnam you have an interesting turnaround in political fortunes from korea you have the people who supported korea against vietnam and you have those who are violently opposed the glory of supporting the vietnam was any attempt made to find out what the american people though well my basic point is it's supposed to him democracy you have to know what the public wants money doesn't mean necessarily you should do exactly what the public wants you to do because then you would say where's it go back i don't want to get involved in an intimate thing about say it like the munich time well mr campbell and when he

decided on just that doing what he did in munich returned and he had the whole public behind him the whole house of calm and accept church and a few people was here i was here right in doing it so there's a question in democracy whether you should always a full exactly public opinion which is also very changeable on vietnam i think there was a good deal of support for mid nineties intervention in the initiators and then with all of these wars and all these problem that it began to change i think there's a there is a problem in a totally different dimension the word democratic i think someone could confuse is there because surely the situation in which chamberlain are rather than in england in the nineteen late nineteen thirties that was not democratic republic if you can even speak with democratic pro public in the same sense that the public is public opinion is brought to bear on foreign policy in this country

when all because you had a tradition of lead foreign policy but that you know the people where then they vote the same way we vote and what people can argue was a disaster that they've they were not a situation was not such that they could come around sanaa i think public than there are of course quicker from publix involved in the united states and soviet union under some question that even if there were such a thing which certainly there is not unlike a legacy that if but in the practice but even if there were such a thing as a relatively free public opinion in the sense of free expression of public opinion in russia whether the russians would have the same problem for the simple reason that public participation political decisions is simply unheard of it is not beyond the imagination of a russian to imagine the presses a little bit freer having a little bit more leeway then and then it has or has had but it is beyond his imagination that he must take

some kind of action about war or boys some kind of opinion that is going to be heard on the basis of what he read so our aid forms himself about a newspaper so that thing that that the willingness to participate in public affairs the eagerness to participate in public affairs it reflects a totally different level of democratic education i think in society is that the mere obstacle to freedom of expression isn't removing that isn't going to remove ms kaplan this deference this difference in some ways is the russians an immediate advantage the long term this event so how long is the us a long term in the senate said that we the video all the only on the participation in foreign policy i love of love of abroad in expanding

public and everything that that contributes to foreign policy is absent there and you can't really conceive that is being present on any significant scale for police along talking about it again when you're in a long time is quite a long time because i didn't realize and if they like it that when it comes to the soviet public that as though they will not be given the chance to make it if they were i mean when they when do that weigh exactly would do in speaking about i suppose that when i'm speaking about is the level of political culture and and and that requires a certain look you have accumulated historical experience behind it and it doesn't it doesn't change overnight and and the fact that you know that the bridge that but the prices is allowed to say something that it hasn't been allowed to say before doesn't in itself change the public

and in intervening in any immediate time and we anticipate in the next few years in a better relationship with russia than we have today are doing would you project that mr trice centennial of lice that alone will be still having the same basic problem we have today in the all around i am optimistic if you book in terms of a century and so if you do no one knows for sure but that i think the process has being that only the slow if you take nineteen seventeen and the nineteen seventy six in the soviet union there been ups and dawns but then i would say if we don't do a public opinion that it has air slightly more significance today for the soviet leaders then it ahead of both understanding and i think that process will

be honored even ups and on but i think great year they are it would be more important especially when you talk about that certain segments of the soviet population and going on up on that it hasn't been working so much i think that it would they go for a long time for them become activists and so on but say the engineer said that big a personnel people i get there i can they are they would be eager to sign citing the slow breaths in libya and incomes over many decades i doubt that they will become fully democratic but let's say in it would be quite is a democratic or spark morrison quiz i often rick perry and the regime and i thing will be able to find some sort of a better accommodation with them than we do now well as our audience can say this is not an easy problem to answer

because the taunt and russia are much easier to talk about them to solve those problems our panelists today and included edward divorced a professor of government at the university of texas and often said name on us professor slavic languages of the university and edward hulett assistant professor of economics at ut austin this as rex we're for two hundred years two hundred years as part of the united states bicentennial program at the university of texas austin is a continuing series of weekly conversations about the past present and future dynamics of history's longest living democratic society two hundred years it's really striking this is