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Frank Conversation with Garry Kasparov

Frank Conversation with Garry Kasparov

A new book "Winter is coming" by the world's #1 ranked chess player and the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation Garry Kasparov hit the shelves of the book stores in New York City. After listening to Garry Kasparov's talk about his book at Barns & Nobles, I decided to get it for myself. 

World chess master shared his thoughts about the world order, American foreign policy, and its weak response to Putin’s actions. He talked about Putin as “the biggest and most dangerous threat facing the world today” and about the naiveté of Obama administration.

Garry Kasparov, "... even though Putin is now a clear and present danger, Europe and America are still getting it wrong. We need new alliances to combat the stateless terror networks and authoritarian regimes that use our technologies against us. These alliances must be based on moral principles, the only weapon the enemies of democracy cannot match."

Chess master said that the world is on the edge of a new Cold War but it refuses to admit it and and avoids to take immediate actions. “The democracies of the world must unite and relearn the lessons of how the Cold War was won before we slide completely into another one.”

The world leaders use policies of engagements, appeasements, and resets with the world dictators. “They talk about promoting democracy while treating the leaders of the world's most repressive regimes as equals. The naive idea was to use economic and social ties to gradually liberalize authoritarian states. In practice, the authoritarian states have abused this access and economic interdependence to spread their corruption and fuel repression at home.”

The recent example, the lack of political will by the European Union to deter Putin’s aggression in Ukraine. “Instead of using the EU’s overwhelming economic influence to stop Putin’s actions in Ukraine, they feign helplessness.” Even after Western firms were repeatedly betrayed, cheated, and threatened by their Russian partners and kicked out of partnerships or the country, they came back looking for more like beaten dogs to an abusive master,”  says Garry Kasparov. 

"The U.S. and EU have levied sanctions against Russian officials and industries, if mostly too little and too late. And yet they are still refuse to admit the need for condemning and isolating Russian like the dangerous rogue state Putin has turned it into. This generation of Western leaders refuses to admit that evil still exists in this world and that it must be fought on absolute terms, not negotiated with.”