How Should the U.S. Confront Russian Imperialism? | Professor Timothy Snyder

Описание: Yale Professor Timothy Snyder testifies before the U.S. Helsinki Commission at its hearing on Russia's Imperial Identity.

In this segment, Snyder lays out 5 recommendations for U.S. foreign policy on Russia and the war in Ukraine:

1. Snyder notes that myths of empire can only grow when nobody knows anything about history. He suggests that we need to understand history in order to properly assess the situation and form good policy.

2. Snyder says that if we're going to be anti-imperial, we also have to be reflective. He says that if Americans are going to talk about anti-imperialism, they better be ready to talk about their own Imperial past or else risk the global south not taking them seriously. He believes people from the global south have to be brought into this conversation, or it makes no sense.

3. Snyder says we need to understand that imperialism directly contradicts the basic foundations of the international legal order. He says that imperialism is against everything we take for granted and that brings us stability.

4. Snyder suggests that Americans who are against empire should be in favor of the European Union. He says that the European Union is the way that European states have found another kind of political organization, a way to interact that is post-imperial and anti-imperial.

5. Finally, Snyder says it's most important to note that empires usually lose their wars. He notes that since 1945, the bigger country, the empire, has usually lost its wars. He says that means that we can expect, or at least it wouldn't be strange, if Russia would lose its war. He suggests further that Russia should lose its war on Ukraine, even if all you care about is Russia. He says that the only way that empires in Europe have transitioned into becoming rule of law states is by losing their last imperial war.

He urges the Helsinki Commission to understand that an analysis of the history of empire would lead to the conclusion that doing what one can to help Russia lose this imperial war would be good, not only for the people that Russia is oppressing and whose existence they're denying, but also good for Russia itself.

Timothy Snyder is the Richard C. Levin Professor of History and Global Affairs at Yale University and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. A scholar of history of Central and Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and the Holocaust, Snyder speaks five and reads ten European languages, has written 16 books, including six on Ukraine, and co-edited two. His work, published in forty languages, has inspired political demonstrations, sculpture, posters, punk rock, rap, film, theater, opera, and earned him six state orders and decorations from Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, and Poland, four honorary doctorates, and numerous prizes and awards.

Snyder writes and speaks in the international press on Ukraine, American politics, strategies for averting authoritarianism, digital politics, health, and education, also appearing in documentaries, on network television, in major films, and as an expert witness to Congress. He is an ambassador to United 24 where he launched the Safe Skies fund for military defense of Ukraine. Snyder leads 90 scholars in the Ukrainian History Global Initiative, a charitable foundation for research on prehistory of Ukrainian lands, the spread of Indo-European languages, international relations, nation building, and imperialism.