Samuel Charap
speaker
472 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2026
last heard 24 Mar
Samuel Charap’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Mar 2026 with 1.
Appearances
And it's that history I would look to where we don't think of agreements as transforming a relationship to become fundamentally friendly or something, but about how to achieve stability through negotiation, viewing negotiation as a tool of statecraft along with coercive elements.
rather than some alternative to using coercive elements, I think is an important way to think about how to deal with the problematic, to put it mildly, countries that exist in the world today that are ultimately unlikely to disappear like the Soviet Union did.
And that, I think, also colors our view of how confrontation with autocracies end.
the geopolitical miracle of 1989 to 1991, where an empire, you know, largely peacefully, although that's sort of overrated because there were some violence, imploded and, you know, basically not only imploded, but also said, our model was wrong and we accept yours.
That's unlikely to happen, or at least betting on that is not a wise thing
foreign policy move.
So I think we, you know,
We need to accept these countries for what they are, not sugarcoat it, but also see that in the past, even with countries that are objectionable, both in their domestic political regimes and their foreign policy behavior, we have been able to find agreements that serve our interests while not giving up on any of the elements of sort of shaping the environment using military and other means.
So, I mean, I don't think a Russian sphere of influence is a viable solution to the problems that exist in terms of Russia's relations with its neighbors and contestation between Russia and the West over influence there.
A lot of these countries don't want to be subjugated to particularly this Russia, but just generally speaking, they want their independence.
Their elites have come to have a structured incentive to prioritize that.
And so, as we discussed earlier, even with Ukraine, in the 80% of Ukraine that the Ukrainian government is likely to end up with, Russia's influence will be dramatically attenuated.
So I hardly see the outcome that we're describing as one of ceding influence to them.
You know, I also think that there's no reason, you know, for example, the United States now, interestingly, under Trump has taken upon itself to lead a process of reconciliation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, right?
Russia's near abroad, right?
That seems to make sense to me.
You know, if the U.S.
can get it done, great.
That war has been going on essentially since before the Soviet collapse.
In other words, I think just saying this is Russia's sphere of influence and we must retreat is not really a viable policy option, nor is it a desirable one.
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