An Evening with Garry Kasparov

Wednesday, November 18, 2015
8:00pm (Reception 6:30-7:30pm)

An Evening with Garry Kasparov

Winter is Coming:
Why Vladimir Putin and the Enemies of the Free World Must Be Stopped

William Turner Gallery
Bergamot Station Arts Center
2525 Michigan Avenue,
Santa Monica, CA 90404

TICKETS
$20 General Admission
$30 Reserved Section Seat
$45 Includes Kasparov's book + Seat in reserved section

Garry Kasparov spent twenty years as the world's #1 ranked chess player. In 2005, he retired from professional chess to lead the pro-democracy opposition against Vladimir Putin, and ran for the presidency of Russia in 2008. In 2012, he was named chairman of the Human Rights Foundation, succeeding Václav Havel. He has been a contributing editor to The Wall Street Journal since 1991, and his 2007 book, How Life Imitates Chess, has been published in twenty-six languages.

In his upcoming book, Winter is Coming, Garry Kasparov argues that Vladimir Putin's dangerous global ambitions have been ignored too long—and he won't be stopped unless America stands up to him.

“Garry Kasparov has written a passionate indictment both of Russia's kleptocracy and the complacency of Western democracies in the face of Putin. This threat has become our central foreign policy challenge, and Kasparov's arguments are essential in understanding how to face it.”
—Francis Fukuyama, Stanford University

According to Kasparov, the ascension of Vladimir Putin—a former lieutenant colonel of the KGB—to the presidency of Russia in 1999 should have been a signal that the country was headed away from democracy. Yet in the intervening years—as America and the world's other leading powers have continued to appease him—Putin has grown not only into a dictator but a global threat. With his vast resources and nuclear weapons, Putin is at the center of a worldwide assault on political liberty.

Garry Kasparov has been a vocal critic of Putin for over a decade, even leading the pro-democracy opposition to him in the 2008 presidential election. Yet years of seeing his Cassandra-like prophecies about Putin's intentions fulfilled have left Kasparov with the realization of a darker truth: Putin's Russia defines itself in opposition to the free countries of the world. Putin is still fighting the Cold War, even as Americans have first moved beyond it, and over time, forgotten its lessons.

Lest we be drawn into another prolonged conflict, Kasparov now urges a forceful stand—diplomatic and economic—against Putin. As long as the world's powerful democracies continue to recognize and negotiate with Putin, he can maintain credibility in his home country. He faces few strong enemies within his country, so meaningful opposition must come from abroad.

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