>> Brent Yacobucci: Good evening and welcome to
the Library of Congress. I'm
Brent Yacobucci, acting director
of the Kluge Center. Thank you
for joining us this evening. If
I could ask everyone just to
take a moment to silence any
electronic devices you have, I'd
appreciate that. This program is
sponsored by the Carnegie 
Corporation of New York,
which supports the Library
of Congress chairs and US-Russia
and US-China relations. The
chairs lead policy-relevant
research, programming and
bipartisan legislative
discussion on US relations with
Russia and China. The focus is
on the present state of
relations, as well as the public
policy challenges likely to face
policymakers in the future.
Andrew Weiss is our chair in
US-Russia relations. He is also
the James family chair and
vice president for
studies at the Carnegie
Endowment for International
Peace. He's also directed and
conducted research on Russia and
Eurasia for the Rand
Corporation, the National
Security Council and other
organizations. I'd like to thank
Andrew for assembling tonight's
panel. Heather Conley is the
German Marshall Fund's sixth
president. She's an expert on
Kremlin, the Kremlin and its
European economic strategy. Rob
Lee is a senior fellow in the
Foreign Policy Research
Institute’s Eurasia Program, 
a former Marine
infantry officer, and an expert
in defense policy. The speakers
full bios are in your packets.
Again, we are glad to have you
here tonight and hope you'll
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off the record. When we get to
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grab dessert at the side tables
at your leisure. And with that,
I will hand things off to
Andrew. Thank you, Andrew.
>> Andrew Weiss: Well, thank you, everyone, for
joining us tonight. Thank you to
Brant. I'm especially grateful
to my colleagues at the Kluge
Center, including Dan Torello,
who's around somewhere. The
honor of being part of Kluge
Center and being in the library
 is really one of
the greatest professional honors
of my career. Tonight's panel
couldn't be more topical, but I
want to start us off by sort of
setting a baseline. And I know
there's been endless media
coverage of the war. I know
there's a lot of intense
interest, but there's a huge
number of unknowns associated
with where we're going. So let's
just stipulate up front that
this is an unprecedented,
disruptive event, similar to
9-11. It is going
to have a series of cascading
effects beyond just what happens
on the battlefield, not that
different from 911, where the
world is now just going to be
very different. But the war is
not over.
And I want to start with Rob,
and I'm going to ask him about
if we were going to be sitting
in this room a year from now,
how different would the war look,
or are we entering a kind of
period of kind of grinding
stalemate? I mean,
I don't mean to tip my own hand,
 but, that is--at
the beginning of this conflict,
I think people sort of thought
the Russians were going to roll
over the Ukrainians and we'd be
in a long term insurgency with a
government in exile. Now we're
in something very different, but
neither side seems able to
really hold decisively the upper
hand. I don't know if that's
your view, but I'm sort of
curious, projecting out 12
months, where are we going to
be?
>> Rob Lee:  Sure.
So the short answer is, I don't
know, which is probably not the
best answer. But I mean, I think
 first off, wars
are extremely unpredictable. And
I don't think the way this war
has progressed, it could have
gone different directions
depending on decisions made by
Russia, decisions made by
Ukraine. You know, if Ukraine
did not have Zelenskiy in
charge, staying, remaining in
Kiev, could have been different
war. So a lot of things that
could have been different. When
we look at the war at this
point, right now, the focus is
on the Donbas. What we know is
that in the beginning, Russia
clearly wanted to conduct regime
change. That was very ambitious
political goals.  That failed,
once the battle
for Kiev failed, Russia couldn't
achieve those really ambitious
goals. They had to kind of
reduce them somewhat. I think it
went through three phases where
the first was regime change,
second was compellence, and a
third, it seems more about
occupation at this point. That's
what the kind of reducing the
goals to because I think that's
what they think they can
achieve. In the Donbas, it's an
area where Russia should have
advantages in terms of
conventional military power. One
of the problems they had in this
war was they advanced from too
many axes of advance and they
didn't amass
forces effectively just
violating a very basic principle
of war. And the problem was they
have so much attrition after the
first two months that now they
are resetting themselves in an
area where they should be better
off, they should have
advantages, but ultimately the
attrition they faced was mostly
in their most elite units. So
the VDV, the Airborne Forces,
naval infantry, motorized rifle
units, all of these units face
very heavy attrition. What that
means is, it's unlikely Russia
can get a local superiority of
numbers in numerical
superiority, which you need
for offensive
operations. And right now the
offensive is going on the
Donbas, you know, they are
making some small gains, but
it's costly. And as long as
Ukraine doesn't--can manage to not
have its forces get cut off and
encircled in that area, the
really in my view, Russia can't
really achieve strategic kind of
gains. And so I think a year
from now, it's extremely hard to
predict. I think right now we're
in a phase where if Russia can
achieve much more in the next
few weeks, then attrition will
probably be too much for the
current Russian military,
the active duty military
 with contract units,
and Russia is going to make a
decision about whether they
mobilize, whether they decide to
send in conscripts, because
ultimately when Russia invaded
about 75% of its maneuver
battalions, batallian tactic
groups, probably they sent about
another ten or so, so about 80%
are probably right now in
Ukraine committed on one level
or another. Some of those are no
longer existent, but that's how
much they committed. When the US
invaded Iraq, they committed
about 35% to 40%.
So there was, the US could have,
had a rotation that was
available with units, and so
 it didn't have the
same units committed there for
long term. They're just, there
aren't units for Russia to
commit at this point. They've
taken units from South Ossetia,
Abkhazia, Tajikistan,
Kaliningrad. They pull from
everywhere. And so basically in
order for Russia to sustain the
war, even just as is, even
without making more gains,
they're going to have to
probably make a decision at some
point to mobilize, to send
conscript units. And that
becomes a very hard to predict
how that will politically, how
successful they'll be
militarily, how effective will
these conscript units be.
Do they have the
equipment? Do they have officers
to lead them, NCOs to lead them?
That's not clear. So, you know,
12 months is hard to predict. I
think six months is hard to
predict. At some point, Putin's
gonna make a decision about how
do we continue to sustain this
operation. And right now with
just the contract servicemen in
the Russian military, I don't
think they can do it for too
many more months by themselves
alone. At that point, I think it
becomes very, very hard to
predict. But you said, I think
the most likely result is it
becomes more attritional, the
front lines start
to not move around too much and
that will likely be the course
it goes. But it's a very low
confidence, I guess, assessment.
>> Andrew Weiss: Thanks,
Rob. So let me bring Heather
into the conversation. Heather,
if I'm not mistaken, we have a
very special mutual friend who's
a great American, former deputy
secretary of State Richard
Armitage, who you worked for at
the State Department in the Bush
administration. And after 9-11,
the US-Russia relationship was
qualitatively transformed.
And Richard
Armitage was kind of a point
person. We’re in another one of
those moments where the
relationship is being
qualitatively transformed. But
we're going from this kind of
frenemy relationship where there
were certain elements of
cooperation to something that's
really almost purely
adversarial. And I'm just
curious, again, just taking the
year time frame out there, the
Ukrainian resistance to Russian
aggression is so laudable and so
poignant, but we're in this
 fight in some
form. This is not just a Russia
Ukraine conflict. The US is the
enabler, the funder, the
provider of intelligence and
military capabilities to the
Ukrainians that have contributed
to their lethality, as Rob was
just talking about. I mean,
there's another person pulling
the trigger that brings the
attrition into reality and it's
the Ukrainian side. How
dangerous do you think this
dynamic is going to be between
the United States and
 Russia going forward
now that we are in a
some sort of an almost purely
confrontational phase?
>> Heather Conley: Well, Andrew,
it's an incredibly
dangerous moment because we have
a revisionist Russia. It's not
going to stop at Ukraine. And I
think we, pulling back, and with
a great deal of analytical
humility, which we all need to
embrace no matter your, your
discipline. In many ways, we
have been in this mode since
 2008 when Russia
invaded Georgia, and occupied
South Ossetia and Abkhazia. So
we've had 14 years of
territorial encroachment of
Russia's neighbors. This
particular act has now caused us
to reframe the entire policy and
no better picture of the
countries that are
reframing their policy than is
Germany, in Europe.
We are watching I have to say,
as an analyst, I'm watching 30
plus, even goes back more, 40,
50 years of German policy just
disintegrate in hours.
We are contemplating in the next
two weeks inviting Sweden and
Finland to join NATO. Sometimes
you can't even grasp the
strategic effects, as you said,
that are flowing
from February 24th. Everything
changed on February 24th. So
there is no going back. There is
no reset that we can have. And
we've had multiple resets with
multiple administrations that
admirably tried to have a stable
and predictable relationship
with Russia. The 2001, 2002, I
think that is where we had a
very different Putin who was
willing to make a go of being a
partner with the West, and he
viewed the 9-11 as
a complete reframing of the US
Russian relationship based on
counterterrorism. Of course we
have such a different definition
of terrorism and
counterterrorism, but those days
are done.  We are going back.
This is now war crime, if not
eventually genocide. To be
honest with you, I think we
will, we will get to that legal
definition at some point. So
now, if you believe what Rob, I
mean, I believe 100% what Rob
was saying. What we're talking
about is Russia's defeat. 
That's the flip side of
Ukraine winning and Russia being
weakened, which is what
Secretary Blinken and Secretary
Austin said just a week and a
half ago. We do not have a
strategic paradigm to address
Russia's defeat, if this is in
some ways where this goes,
because it's going to be even
more unstable, more fragmentary,
and even if Mr. Putin
survives, doesn't survive,
what comes after maybe
much, much worse than 
Mr. Putin himself. So
that's really, from a strategic
standpoint, that's what we have
to prepare for. That's why NATO
has to thicken its defenses.
That's why we have to prepare
for that oncoming instability.
And that could be a global
instability if Xi Jinping
decides that he cannot tolerate
a Russian defeat because he's
signed on to this alignment, and
if China does make a decision to
support Russia. So, again, these
broader effects. But we
we are going back. We 
have to create the new
paradigm here. And that's that's
really what we're struggling
with because we're just watching
what's happening on the
battlefield from a day to day
basis.
>> Andrew Weiss: So let's
talk a little bit about that new
paradigm, Rob. And this is maybe
pulling you a little bit out of
your, your comfort zone.
And I hope everyone's watching
Rob on Twitter because Rob is
kind of [>>Heather: He's the best.] Rob is sort of
the person chronicling in real
time all these manifestations of
violence in the region and
the capabilities that are,
that are driving this
war. But let's talk a little bit
about Russian hard power for a
second, and what kind of military
power Russia is capable of
generating. In Ukraine,
Russia's not using its air force
very effectively. It's not using
long range artillery or rockets
and missiles that effectively,
it's largely this kind of either
dash to Kiev to
decapitate the Zelensky
government or kind of World War
Two style movements of tanks and
armored personnel carriers that
can then get chewed up by the
Ukrainians, who are much more
nimble and enabled by UAVs or US
and other systems.
But is that Russia in toto?
Or is there a sort of bigger
picture of Russian military
power that is sort of out there
that we need to think about
for this kind of ten-year type
 horizon that we
were just talking about? And how
do you--how big a challenge is
it? You know, there's, I assume,
going to be a tendency to say,
like, Eh! the Russians are such
bozos and like we've seen this
comeuppance and the possibility
of an outright defeat that
Heather was talking about. But
Russia hasn't brought all of its
military capability into this
fight. And obviously, we're
going to be in a more dynamic,
unpredictable world. So I'm just
sort of curious how we should
 think about, how
people should think about
Russia's military capabilities
writ large going forward,
especially the things that
really matter to the United
States.
>> Rob Lee: Sure. So, first
off, Russia's taken very heavy
casualties in this war already,
and equipment and personnel.
That's going to be very
difficult to reconstitute
anytime soon. So we're looking
at a timeline of several years
before they can recover a lot of
these respects. You know, one of
the big weaknesses of the
Russian military is personnel.
So they've been trying to become
more of a professional military,
moving away from a
kind of conscript mobilization
centric military that that was
the case in the Soviet Union.
They've had some success. But
the, clearly the numbers of
contract soldiers are less than
they had been talking about and
they didn't meet the numbers.
And so one thing that's been
notable is that the battalion
type of groups that they
deployed, and the--Sergei Shoigu said in
August they had 168, that was the figure
they provided, was that a lot of
these battalion type groups, the
personnel numbers are much lower
than we thought. It appears they
change the table of
organization. So
what they're supposed to have in
those units, to a lower unit, to
a lower level, so from a
motorized rifle battalion, based
on [indistinct], it's about 560
personnel. It looks as though
now it's about 350.
And when you add attachments,
it's larger. But we thought that
BGs, it was mostly going to be 700-900
 personnel and now we're
seeing 400 to 600 in a lot of
cases. So they're much smaller
than what we thought before.
That shows really a significant
personnel weakness. And now
 those are the
troops that have been taking the
casualties. And so, you know,
the longer this war goes on is
going to be more difficult to
deal with that because: one, is the
heavy casualties; two, the
current conscripts are not going
to necessarily want to sign
contracts--and that's who they
rely on.
The new conscripts coming in
right now, they don't have
anyone to train them because
they’re supposed get trained on
the units by contract soldiers.
And so there's a knock on effect
here and it's not clear how
Russia will recover very quickly
on recruiting more contract
soldiers. In terms of equipment,
they've lost significant amount.
They've fired off a large number
of their cruise missiles,
ballistic missiles. I
don't know the percentages, but
it's certainly a sizeable
proportion. They're going to
have to completely rework their
defense spending so they do a
ten year state arms program.
They're going to have to retool
that to make up for the losses
they've had. All those are
significant issues in terms of
the weaknesses we've seen. I'm
somewhere in between, so they've
shown weaknesses that were
greater than I thought they were
going to have. But, there's also
a lot of things that contribute
to that. It's not just the
Russian military. So one was
basically the decision to 
invade Ukraine was
kept very close to the vest. So
Putin knew, high level officials
knew, but most units did not
know until maybe the day of, the
day prior. So in terms of
logistics, all the kind of
planning you do, all those
issues we've seen in this war,
well, that exacerbates
everything tremendously. So all
those things become worse. So
that's a big part of it. Part of
it is, there were very
unrealistic goals associated
with this war. They were never
going to be able to achieve the
goals they set out for. There's
always kind of
incoherence, a lack of coordination 
in this plan. So some of
those things, you know, there's
no guarantee that Russia was
going to fight a war like they
did this way and put the
military in such a position. In
some ways, the political level,
they set the military up for
failure. So all of those are key
issues. And I think one other
key thing, too, and we keep
learning more about this, is
that the US is providing very
important intelligence sharing
and it literally may be
unprecedented in modern times of
actionable intelligence that
Ukrainians can use to then
target key leadership positions.
You know, there's news today
 about the Moskva that
the US played a role in
providing some intelligence here
with that. I don't know the full
scope of it, so it's hard to say
right now. But that's one thing
going on this war that it's not
just Russia versus Ukraine, it's
Russia versus Ukraine, plus the
US intelligence community
providing actionable
intelligence as something that
probably didn't expect before.
And so all of those are kind of
things that factor in. I
wouldn't say the Russian
military is a paper tiger. I
think that's going to be an
important thing after this is over
to not get into that mentality,
but it's going to take them a
number of years to recover.
 And we know there are
weaknesses in the Air Force and
elsewhere in electronic warfare.
I thought they'd do better.
They're clearly not as capable
in those regards than I thought
they would be. And so certainly
my assessment would be they're
not as effective as I thought
in a number of respects, and that's gonna
 be important going forward.
>> Andrew Weiss: Thanks, Rob. 
So I've got a two part
question for Heather. And then
we're very much hoping to bring
this group of folks who are part
of this conversation into the
discussion directly. And they'll
be a way for me to call on you
if you've got questions. Let's
talk about the high end aspects
of Russia's power that really
 matter in terms of
US national security, their
nuclear, their cyber, their
space capabilities. Those have
not been touched for the sake of
the last two months of grinding
their conventional forces up.
But how worried do you think of
more militarized and renegade is
the term I'm using, Russia is
going to be for the United
States?
>> Heather Conley: Well, I think this is,
 this is really
again, following Rob's logic,
which it's a daunting picture
for Russia and Russian forces.
And if you believe that Vladimir
Putin cannot sustain a defeat,
then what does he do to break
the will of the Ukrainian people
and the way he's been trying to
get Europe to back off and
sanctions and things like that,
he continues to threaten,
threaten nuclear. That's been,
that's certainly been the
 message. This was
probably gosh, Rob, maybe it was
a month or so ago, a month and a
half ago. And it was when, I
believe it was Putin or Shoigu
basically created a new term of
art that Russia's nuclear forces
would be going combat ready.
This is not a doctrinal level.
We don't know what that is. We
didn't understand what that was
other than you guys better be
careful. And immediately after
that came out, the head of
Russia's strategic
forces said very clearly it was
just a very flat nothing has
changed in Russia's nuclear
doctrine. So I interpret that as
we know you're hearing something
from the political leadership.
I'm sending to my professional
cadre. There has been no change
in that. And whether that's
comforting or not to anybody to
me said that there was still a
professionalization there. But I
think this is where we do, as an
alliance, have to
start thinking, and are starting
to flow CBN capabilities towards
the eastern flank, and for the
Ukrainians to have, I mean, in
the first days of the war, you
couldn't buy an iodine pill in
Vienna. I mean, they are taking
that threat very seriously.
But in some ways, the more they
keep saying they're going to use
this and don't, it starts to
lose its power.
We are no longer afraid.
And look at the, look
at what the
Russians have been--the threats
towards Finland and Sweden as
they move towards NATO
membership.
They're not afraid. And so this
provoking hasn't slowed the
weapons down to Ukraine. And
again, I think it did in the
beginning, I think the Biden
administration was concerned
about provoking escalation.
They were self deterring a
little bit. And that has now
gone away because I think,
again, we don't have a policy
framework for what we want
 right now, but we're
starting to, we're starting to
articulate it. We now don't want
just a cease fire, we want
Ukraine to win, we want to
weaken Russian capabilities so
they cannot attack their
neighbor again. When you have
clear objectives, you can start
placing that into some context.
But look, we don't know and we
don't know backed into a corner
if Putin's legitimacy comes into
question. They have clearly said
if an existential threat to
this regime, they will use
 nuclear weapons. We
just don't know what any of that
means right now. But we have to
be prepared for absolutely every
scenario.
>> Andrew Weiss: So I'm
going to do two more questions
and then I hope folks here can
start taking the questions you
want to ask Rob and Heather. I'm
going to ask one to Rob and then
one to Heather. So if you were a
Russian infantry officer
who had gone through what forces
there have gone
through and had to think about
sort of what the payback looks
like and the fact that you know
that America has sort of brought
this upon the Russian military,
which is a proud institution and
which had a lot of success over
the last ten years in places
like Syria and elsewhere, and
kind of made its weight felt and
also seemed to have benefited
from modernization. But if you
had to put your former Marine
officer self, you
know, through what they've gone
through, what's the way of
thinking you think of a
comparable person serving in
Ukraine and what are they
thinking about doing to us as a
result of this debacle?
>> Rob Lee:  So, I think
the broader question is how does
Russia kind of come to terms
with this war? And so, you know,
one of the big things to
remember is that, you know,
Russian news, when they talk
about Ukraine, it's kind of in a
paternalistic manner. Right. 
And it's always
kind of Ukraine is kind of like
little brother. And it's you
know, and they talk of the
Ukrainian military. It's always
they have bad equipment, they're
not well trained, all those
things. And the same thing with
the Ukrainian leadership.
They're weak, they're puppets of
NATO and so on. And then, you
know, you're shown pretty clear
evidence that all of that's not
true and all the things they’re
saying with the Russian
military, all the hype of the
Russian weapons, well, they're
fighting, they're using almost
all these weapons in Ukraine.
And Ukraine is not losing. And
so it becomes difficult to,
how do you justify
this? So, yeah, it's an issue
for the military, the issue for
the political leadership,
everyone, you know, one of those
could be, well, this is all
NATO. It wasn't Ukraine, it was
the NATO that defeated us and so
on that might become, they
likely will become a part of the
kind of the way they kind of
comprehend this and the lesson
they draw after that.
 In terms of the
US, you know, I'm not sure. I
think part of this too is that
anyone in the Russian military
who's in this war, they almost
certainly know we weren't told
enough about this ahead of time.
The goals were unclear
and the
intelligence was not good. And
we have equipment issues and we
didn't go into this war the
right way, all those kind of
issues. So there is a question
about how much of this anger is
directed back at their
leadership. I think there
definitely is going to be a
reduced trust in kind of the
senior Russian leadership in the
military. And I think, you know,
a broader issue is that when you
look at why this war is not
going well, there's you can only
really point to the senior
leadership of the Russian
government, because this is Putin.
This is the system he developed.
And one of the
really big parts about Russia is
that they always talk about how
important is to be great power
status. Well, a really key
component of great power status
on Putin was here's a Russian
military. We rebuilt it. It was
in a bad state. Now it's strong,
now it's respected. Look, these
hypersonic missiles, all those
kind of things, well, it's not
performing well.
And that's for a variety 
of reasons, some
of which are just, you know, the
leadership side of how they
conduct this war. But
ultimately, it comes back to
there's going to be a issue with
--are we still
respected? Are we this great
power? You know, how do we deal
with this kind of national
humiliation that we kept saying
we should be doing well and
we're not doing well. I'm not
sure they respond to that. But
it is a significant problem. And
the only people you can blame
are the people in the senior
leadership of the Russian
government. And we look the
Russian military, Shoigu, Gersimov,
they've been in charge for a decade now and
should they have been in charge
that long? Should they have
rotated people? Probably. And
all those kind of things now
come back when you look at the
system that Putin has developed,
you know, there are a lot of
questions about
who let this happen. Well, you
know, there's there's kind of a
few people you point at. And
that's I think, again, one of
the big problems for Putin going
forward is that I think he knows that.
>> Andrew Weiss:  So, last
question, Heather, and we'll
open things up. There's
obviously been a remarkable US
policy response to this crisis,
the cooperation with the
Ukrainians, the sharing of
intelligence in advance.
Globally, the creation of this
coalition of countries that see
this, you know, in fairly
black and white
terms. And a unusual focus on
sanctions as kind of the thing
that's going to lay low the
Putin regime. And during this
period, Russia's essentially had
its role in the global economy
stripped away. Putin has
basically set his economy on
fire. And US and European
policymakers have done just a
number on Vladimir Putin.
It's a stunning case study of 
how effective US
leadership can really galvanize
a global response. But sanctions
are not going to fix our Putin
problem. I don't mean to put,
sorry, I don't mean to put my
views out there front center,
but just I'm curious if that's
your sense as well that there is
something about Putin's hold on
power and role on the global
stage that sanctions are not
going to be sufficient to
deal with?
>> Heather Conley: Yeah, it's a 
great question. And the
sanctions now, the EU just
announcing their sixth round of
sanctions. This is getting
harder now because this is now
allies putting their economy on
the line. I mean, obviously,
we're feeling that pressure here
as well with with gas prices and
things like that. So this gets
harder the more we have to go.
And again, if we're not going to
put forces in Ukraine, the
sanctions in some ways become
the alternative to putting your
military forces. And so
they have to be
extremely robust.
Again, this speaks to, again,
the miscalculations that are
happening because, quite
frankly, due to extraordinary
technical capabilities of the
Russian government, and I think
we can’t, part of it’s a
question, Putin, Shoigu,
Gerasimov they've made
miscalculated this war. But the
technocrats, the Russian central
bank governor,  Mishustin, I mean,
they are technically balancing
all of these things and have
done a masterful job. In fact,
with the ruble
being back at pre-war levels,
now they've instituted capital
controls. But come the summer
and the fall, this is when those
sanctions, they can't resupply
anything.
Those shelves are going to be
empty. That's when they really
bite. And so you're absolutely
right.
I mean, what strategic gain? I
mean, the irony is, in part,
there are lots of complexities
about why Putin invaded Ukraine,
but in one of those was to try
 to recover from
what he viewed was the great
humiliation of the collapse of
the Soviet Union.  He invades
again to have a greater
humiliation, a weakened economy,
a weakened military. And so,
again, this is where we're
trying to grapple with what does
Russia's decoupling from the
international system, what does
that look like in the future?
And this is, again, where the
China factor comes into play. So
it's such an important role
because does China, in fact,
want a very weak Russia, cheap
energy? They're  already buying
 at deep, deep
discounts. Agricultural lands.
That's great. Critical minerals.
That's great. Or, does China
want a Russia that is strong and
can be able to be with it in
shoulder to shoulder in trying
to shape the international
system to its policy
preferences? That's what we
don't know. But it's very clear
from a demographic decline,
COVID, this incredible loss of
life in the military,
 the economics of
this.  This picture, it was
already not so great for Russia
in the future. The cut off of
Europe buying Russian energy
completely changes Russia's
economy. By 2030, I don't know
what it looks like other than
providing gas to, and energy to
China, to India, it's going to
be in dire straits.
So this fragility, this
fragmentation, this highly
unstable Russia that may not be
able to hold itself together is
a scenario we really have to 
think about quite
hard and to make sure we are
protected from that instability.
>> Andrew Weiss: So a lot
of food for thought. Thank you
to Heather Conley. Thank you,
Rob Lee.