Reset: A New Cold War?
It has been more than two decades since the old Soviet Union collapsed, but there are fears that a new Cold War is brewing between Moscow and the West. From the dark world of espionage, to the gleaming towers of Wall Street, to the cratered killing zones of Syria, it's a war with many battlefields.
PT 1: Panel: Edward Lucas / Stephen Cohen
From sleeper spy cells to the craters of Syria, some believe a new cold war is underway. Our next two guests have charted Russian U.S. relations through the decades.
Edward Lucas is the International Editor of The Economist and author of Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West and The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West. He joined us from London, England.
And Stephen Cohen is a professor emeritus of Russian studies at New York University and Princeton University. His book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is newly available in paperback. He was in New York.
PT 2: Russian historian & journalist, Svetlana Chervonnaya
Igor Gouzenko was a 26 year old clerk with the Soviet embassy in Ottawa when he walked out with a stack of documents exposing the size of a vast spy network. His defection played a big part in launching the Soviet spy scare of the late 1940s and 1950s.
If there really is a new Cold War -- should there be a new Spy Scare as well?
There's mixed opinions on that. Svetlana Chervonnaya is a Russian historian and journalist whose specialty is national security issues, especially related to the Cold War. Until 2001 she worked for Russia's Institute of Canada and the US. We reached her today in Moscow.
PT 2: Ray Boisvert / Jason Matthews
The new TV series, The Americans, is a Hollywood look at a Soviet sleeper cell in 1980s America. Russian espionage makes for great entertainment -- as well as a lot of real-life work for Canadian and American spycatchers.
When Ray Boisvert was Assistant Director for CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Russian spies were high on his list of concerns. Ray Boisvert was in our Toronto studio.
And Jason Matthews is a retired officer in the Central Intelligence Agency's former Operations Directorate, now called the National Clandestine Service. Jason Matthews was in the agency for over thirty years, and served as station chief in a number of countries. His new book, Red Sparrow, comes out next month. He was in Palm Springs, California.
Pt 3: Wenran Jiang / James Gruber
"It's been called a cyber cold war... undeclared hostilities in the digital world between China and the US. US intelligence agencies claims Beijing is behind a sustained cyber espionage campaign. An allegation China strenuously denies." (News clip)
That was the unusual news last week, as the US department of defence released its Annual Report to Congress (PDF). In it, the DOD made its first explicit claim that China is using cyber-espionage for military advancement.
According to the report, under the guise of civilian research and development, the Chinese collect "sensitive information" and "key national security technologies." In other words, they're spying.
Wenran Jiang is currently on leave from his position as Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta, working as an Advisor to the Alberta Government on Asian energy markets. He joined us from Edmonton.
And James Gruber is an equities analyst in Asia for many years. He is now a contributor to Forbes Magazine and the founder of an investment newsletter called Asia Confidential. He was in Sydney, Australia.
Pt 3: Historian & Oxford Professor, Margaret MacMillan
Cold wars may just be hot wars waiting to happen -- but the last century shows there are ways out; tensions can relax, a crisis can be averted without everyone fixing bayonets.
Margaret MacMillan is an historian and professor at the University of Oxford. She is also the author of Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. Professor Macmillan joined us from Oxford, England.
This special was produced by The Current's Howard Goldenthal and Jessica deMello.
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