Garry Kasparov is regarded
as one of the best chess players of all time.
His success within the Soviet Union's chess team
in the 70s and 80s, has made him a household name
around the world.
Chess is 100% transparent game.
Information, which is available for me, at the board,
is also available for my opponent, and vice versa.
It's about making projections.
What will happen on the chess board
five or 10 moves from now.
After retiring from chess in 2005,
Mr. Kasparov changed his game, moving into politics.
He tried to challenge a new opponent,
the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
People compare many things to chess.
You can hear chess metaphors all over the place,
whether in politics or at war.
In 2007, Mr. Kasparov announced
he would run against Mr. Putin in the presidential election.
But he was not experienced in the game of politics
and it wasn't much of a contest.
He failed to secure a place on the electoral ballot.
He now lives in exile, in America.
Mr. Putin won that move.
But what game is Mr. Putin playing with the West.
The idea that Putin is a great chess player
is very far from reality.
Dictators, they always like to operate in secrecy
and Putin is a KGB dictator.
Secrecy, blackmail, those are the rules of his game.
The game that is far more consistent with Putin's habits
is a game of cards.
Poker.
Where you can start reading your opponents, bluffing
and raising stakes.
In 1999 Mr. Putin took over
as Russian president from Boris Yeltsin.
As Eastern Europe transitioned from communism to democracy
relations between Russia and the West improved.
But after the Orange Revolution in Ukraine,
Mr. Putin became increasingly hostile.
He felt that America was meddling
in Russia's sphere of influence.
In 2007, he used his speech
at the Munich Security Conference
to voice his angry criticism of American foreign policy.
America and it's allies kept their poker face.
I thought the speech was very aggressive,
but we welcome the dialogue and look forward
to further discussions.
In 2007 in Munich, Putin made very blatant statement
about his plans to recover Russia's influence
in the former Soviet Union.
It's a watershed moment where is a difference
in language being used by both sides.
Dictator believes that he sent a message.
The other side thinks, oh we just, well we're being tested.
In 2014, Mr. Putin embarked
on his most aggressive move yet.
Annexing Crimea and later invading part of Ukraine.
In Crimea, Russian troops occupied the streets,
but they had no insignia on their uniforms
and there was no acknowledgement from Russia
that it was involved.
Crimea went very smoothly.
All elements of the game being well prepared.
Putin didn't care very much about Western reaction
to the annexation of Crimea,
because he already saw no reaction when he did his attack
on Republic of Georgia in 2008.
Mr. Putin had already tested the West
six years earlier, during the five day war with Georgia.
Unwilling to confront Russia directly, some Western leaders
blamed the recklessness of Georgia's president at the time.
In the case of Russia's war with Ukraine though,
the West responded by imposing sanctions
on Mr. Putin's inner circle.
I guess that the sanctions was kind of a surprise to him.
It was definitely more than Putin expected.
In 2012, the United States
drew a red line in Syria.
It told President Bashar al-Assad that if chemical weapons
were used by their regime,
America would take military action.
But just one year on, the regime killed 1400
of it's own people with sarin gas.
America failed to act and it emboldened Mr. Putin.
When the UN Security Council met in 2015
to discuss how to stop the Syrian regime,
President Putin was at the table
and was about to call America's bluff.
Assad had to go, that's what Obama said.
Now Putin wants to prove that Obama was wrong.
All of a sudden he goes to New York for General Assembly,
meets Obama.
Looking in his eye, shaking hands, to show the Russian
television that he Putin went to America,
he tried to improve relations.
Next day, Russian planes bombed
American-backed opposition in Syria.
In the US presidential election of 2016,
the FBI says that Russia used cyber-attacks
and social media to undermine trust in democracy
and help get Donald Trump elected.
How about first discrediting the elections,
the institute of democracy.
Troll factories that were built in Russia,
to fight Russian opposition, to create fake news.
13 Russian nationals have been indicted in America
for interfering and damaging the prospects
of the Democratic candidate, Hilary Clinton.
So how would Garry Kasparov play against Mr. Putin?
He says that engagement has failed.
Instead he thinks the West must isolate and deter Mr. Putin
and his inner circle through a strategy of economic
sanctions, visa limitations and seizure of assets.
Of course we can call his bluff,
of course we can keep raising stakes.
But at the end of the day, as long as we keep
being blackmailed in this geo-political casino,
Putin can be viewed as the winner of the game.
But it's a temporary game.
It's in our hands, to make sure that his tactical gains
will be turned into strategic losses.
So it's not a game of cards, but it's the game
that I know much better, this is a game of chess.
And this is where strategy is everything.