Foreign Affairs committee  That depends. None of these countries want to follow the path of Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova of signing official agreements with the west and having an official partnership as we see in the European Union association agreements. They're perfectly willing to increase bilateral t

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it depends. There seems to be a strong desire among many people on his team to somehow improve the relationship with Russia, and the former national security adviser Flynn is gone because he evidently was talking about that too soon. I do think that some of the informati

Foreign Affairs committee  I'm not sure if I would agree that the Soviet Union has not dissolved. We now have 15 independent states that actually have their own separate identifies, that are very keen on defending those identities and defending their sovereignty, and they have institutionalized entire post

Foreign Affairs committee  One thing that is clear whenever I go to central Asia is that they want to be connected to the west, maybe not Turkmenistan, which is its own separate category, but even post-Karimov Uzbekistan is reaching out to the west. We've seen countries that have had bad relationships wi

Foreign Affairs committee  I think you put the big question there. Russia has been a little disappointed with Chinese assistance after the sanctions because there was a pivot to China, but from what I'm told the terms of the gas deal they signed were very bad for Russia and that stoked some anger among som

Foreign Affairs committee  I think that's the big question. When you look at the U.S. policy in the region in the 1990s and 2000s it was all about trying to unleash the energy resources and get them flowing toward Europe [Technical difficulty—Editor].

Foreign Affairs committee  While our policies from the 1990s were to get all the central Asian energy resources flowing toward the west, China did it much more efficiently. All of Turkmenistan's and much of Uzbekistan's gas is flowing to China. I do think there are frictions already in the relationship.

Foreign Affairs committee  I think it depends on the country. I would agree with the assessment that in the Baltics the fear of aggression is exaggerated. It does help to unify the countries and it does help—or tries—to unify NATO. At least for now, NATO remains a very strong organization. As long as NATO

Foreign Affairs committee  Even in Turkmenistan and Tajikistan over the years there have been some protests and socio-economic grievances aired—even in a place like Turkmenistan, which is a totalitarian state—about the fact that Chinese labourers are getting better jobs and Chinese labourers are getting be

Foreign Affairs committee  Yes, I would agree. Much of the political systems of these countries is highly tied up with schemes of corruption. I think there's a very good article in this week's New Yorker about corruption in Azerbaijan. It's tied to the Trump administration and people tied to President Tr

Foreign Affairs committee  I think your question about the Uighurs in Xinjiang is very relevant for what China's overall ambitions are for the region. I actually was in Beijing and Shanghai about two weeks ago and had discussions there about central Asia with various government and private sector represent

Foreign Affairs committee  It's a very tough balance because I think not doing anything is demoralizing to the Ukrainian people and Ukrainian military, and both of them are trying to reform their government, really make Ukraine work, and hold their government accountable. Having worked in government in t

Foreign Affairs committee  I would agree with that. I think the Russian economy is not in great shape. I don't think it's ready to collapse anytime soon, but it is hurting. We shouldn't expect it to collapse, and we shouldn't think that sanctions are going to cause it to collapse. I think the political si

Foreign Affairs committee  I don't see it right now as trying to carve out new territory in eastern Ukraine. I don't see that the Russians need to do that. They pretty much have what they need. Right now they can keep Ukraine destabilized. They can keep the Ukrainian government disorganized and they have t

Foreign Affairs committee  It is going to become a huge problem. It already is, and it does threaten the energy security of Ukraine as a whole. I think the west needs to continue to help support Ukraine, particularly in its energy security. We also need to have very tough conversations with the Russians