The argument is that independent, democratic nato s woven into western structures adjacent to russia are an inherent threat to the russian federation. If you look at the time of the geographic expansion of nato eastward into the baltics and further into the post soviet space, nato practically disarmed. It was never an offensive alliance. And no reasonable military man in the r Russian federation to day can picture nato as being poised to threaten the rRussian federation. After all, this is our fault. This is our hostile policy that has created this serious rupture in relations. We're going to have to make concessions."
This week, we’re going back to 2017, with our debate "It's time to bring Russia in from the cold: Rapprochement is in the West's best interests". For this major event, Intelligence Squared put together a stellar line-up. Making the case for rapprochement with Russia was Vladimir Pozner, one of Russia’s best known television journalists and a former advocate for the Soviet Union, and Domitilla Sagramoso, a leading expert on security in Russia; arguing against them were Michael Hayden, former director of both the CIA and the NSA, and Radek Sikorski, who was Poland’s foreign minister from 2007 to 2014.
The debate was chaired by BBC World News presenter Nik Gowing.
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