12/06/2007
Russia / Update
Dimitri K. Simes is one of my favorite Russian experts. President of the Nixon Center and Publisher of The National Interest, he had some thoughts on “Losing Russia: The Costs of Renewed Confrontation” in the November/December 2007 issue of Foreign Affairs. In light of the election results in Russia this past weekend, understanding Russia is even more important.
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“Faced with threats from al Qaeda and Iran and increasing instability in Iraq and Afghanistan, the United States does not need new enemies. [Ed. I just have to interject that I’m assuming Simes would alter his language on Iraq these days. It’s not a great situation, but instability is not increasing.] Yet its relationship with Russia is worsening by the day. The rhetoric on both sides is heating up, security agreements are in jeopardy, and Washington and Moscow increasingly look at each other through the old Cold War prism.
“Although Russia’s newfound assertiveness and heavy-handed conduct at home and abroad have been the major causes of mutual disillusionment, the United States bears considerable responsibility for the slow disintegration of the relationship as well. Moscow’s maladies, mistakes, and misdeeds are not an alibi for U.S. policymakers, who made fundamental errors in managing Russia’s transition from an expansionist communist empire to a more traditional great power.
“Underlying the United States’ mishandling of Russia is the conventional wisdom in Washington, which holds that the Reagan administration won the Cold War largely on its own. But this is not what happened, and it is certainly not the way most Russians view the demise of the Soviet state. Washington’s self-congratulatory historical narrative lies at the core of its subsequent failures in dealing with Moscow in the post-Cold War era.
“Washington’s crucial error lay in its propensity to treat post- Soviet Russia as a defeated enemy. The United States and the West did win the Cold War, but victory for one side does not necessarily mean defeat for the other. Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian President Boris Yeltsin, and their advisers believed that they had all joined the United States’ side as victors in the Cold War. They gradually concluded that communism was bad for the Soviet Union, and especially Russia. In their view, they did not need outside pressure in order to act in their country’s best interest.
“Despite numerous opportunities for strategic cooperation over the past 16 years, Washington’s diplomatic behavior has left the unmistakable impression that making Russia a strategic partner has never been a major priority. The administrations of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush assumed that when they needed Russian cooperation, they could secure it without special effort or accommodation. The Clinton administration in particular appeared to view Russia like postwar Germany or Japan – as a country that could be forced to follow U.S. policies and would eventually learn to like them. They seemed to forget that Russia had not been occupied by U.S. soldiers or devastated by atomic bombs. Russia was transformed, not defeated. This profoundly shaped its responses to the United States.
“Since the fall of the Iron Curtain, Russia has not acted like a client state, a reliable ally, or a true friend – but nor has it behaved like an enemy, much less an enemy with global ambitions and a hostile and messianic ideology. Yet the risk that Russia may join the ranks of U.S. adversaries is very real today.”
Simes offers that Mikhail Gorbachev is far more responsible for the disintegration of the Soviet Union than Ronald Reagan. Reagan certainly contributed by increasing pressure on the Kremlin, but Gorbachev made all the important decisions, such as in drastically reducing subsidies for the Warsaw Pact regimes and allowing free elections in the Baltics, which assured they would leave the USSR. However:
“The Reagan and first Bush administrations understood the dangers of a crumbling superpower and managed the Soviet Union’s decline with an impressive combination of empathy and toughness. They treated Gorbachev respectfully but without making substantive concessions at the expense of U.S. interests. This included promptly rejecting Gorbachev’s increasingly desperate requests for massive economic assistance, because there was no good reason for the United States to help him save the Soviet empire.”
And when Gorbachev urged Bush 41 not to attack Saddam Hussein after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the White House didn’t “rub his nose in it,” as then Secretary of State James Baker put it. “As a result, the United States was able to simultaneously defeat Saddam and maintain close cooperation with the Soviet Union, largely on Washington’s terms.”
Simes then adds, “If the George H.W. Bush administration can be criticized for anything, it is for failing to provide swift economic help to the democratic government of the newly independent Russia in 1992. Observing the transition closely, former President Richard Nixon pointed out that a major aid package could stop the economic free fall and help anchor Russia in the West for years to come. Bush, however, was in a weak position to take a daring stand in helping Russia. By this time, he was fighting a losing battle with candidate Bill Clinton, who was attacking him for being preoccupied with foreign policy at the expense of the U.S. economy.”
Then Clinton came into office and aggressively sought to help Russia, mostly through the IMF. But, “The Clinton administration’s greatest failure was its decision to take advantage of Russia’s weakness. The administration tried to get as much as possible for the United States politically, economically, and in terms of security in Europe and the former Soviet Union before Russia recovered from the tumultuous transition. Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbot has also revealed that U.S. officials even exploited Yeltsin’s excessive drinking during face-to-face negotiations.”
Then Russia sobered up and was ticked off. Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev, who accommodated the West, once told Talbot, “It’s bad enough having you people tell us what you’re going to do whether we like it or not. Don’t add insult to injury by also telling us that it’s in our interests to obey your orders.”
Simes:
“But such pleas fell on deaf ears in Washington, where this arrogant approach was becoming increasingly popular .By sending the message that Russia should not have an independent foreign policy – or even an independent domestic one – the Clinton administration generated much resentment.”
At the time, former President Nixon “recognized the folly of the U.S. approach and urged compromise between Yeltin and the more conservative Duma. Nixon was disturbed when Russian officials told him that the United States had expressed its willingness to condone the Yeltsin administration’s decision to take ‘resolute’ steps against the Duma so long as the Kremlin accelerated economic reforms. Nixon warned that ‘encouraging departures from democracy in a country with such an autocratic tradition as Russia’s is like trying to put out a fire with combustible materials.’ Moreover, he argued that acting on Washington’s ‘fatally flawed assumption’ that Russia was not and would not be a world power for some time would imperil peace and endanger democracy in the region.”
The Clinton administration ignored Nixon, with the end result being Yeltsin forced through a new constitution giving the president sweeping powers at the expense of the parliament.
Then in late 1999, Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, “made a major overture to the United States just after ordering troops into Chechnya. He was troubled by Chechen connections with al Qaeda and the fact that Taliban-run Afghanistan was the only country to have established diplomatic relations with Chechnya. Motivated by these security interests, rather than any newfound love for the United States, Putin suggested that Moscow and Washington cooperate against al Qaeda and the Taliban. This initiative came after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 1998 bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, by which time the Clinton administration had more than enough information to understand the mortal danger the United States faced from Islamic fundamentalists.”
“But Clinton and his advisers increasingly saw Russia not as a potential partner but as a nostalgic, dysfunctional, financially weak power at whose expense the United States should make whatever gains it could. Thus they sought to cement the results of the Soviet Union’s disintegration by bringing as many post- Soviet states as possible under Washington’s wing .What the Clinton administration did not appreciate, however, was that it was also giving away a historic opportunity to put al Qaeda and the Taliban on the defensive, destroy their bases, and potentially disrupt their ability to launch major operations. Only after nearly 3,000 U.S. citizens were killed on September 11, 2001, did this cooperation finally begin.”
Then post-9/11, “Putin reiterated his longstanding offer of support against al Qaeda and the Taliban,” but relations remained strained in other areas thanks to Bush’s announcement to withdraw from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, “one of the last remaining symbols of Russia’s former superpower status, further wounding the Kremlin’s pride. Likewise, Russian animosity toward NATO only grew after the alliance incorporated the three Baltic states, two of which – Estonia and Latvia – had unresolved disputes with Russia relating principally to the treatment of ethnic Russian minorities.”
And then there was Ukraine and its Orange Revolution. The U.S., in its support of Viktor Yushchenko, was helping to undermine Russia’s influence in a neighboring state with significant cultural ties going back to the 17th century. And there was Georgia, another formerly in the Soviet sphere. As Simes writes: “The sense in the Kremlin is that the United States cares about using democracy as an instrument to embarrass and isolate Putin more than it cares about democracy itself.”
But all of the above aside, Russia is not yet a formal enemy of the U.S. The Kremlin has not supported al Qaeda or any other terrorist group at war with the United States, nor has it threatened its neighbors with invasion. Simes adds, though, “they are no longer willing to adjust their behavior to fit U.S. preferences, particularly at the expense of their own interests.”
Simes concludes:
“The good news is that although Russia is disillusioned with the United States and Europe, it is so far not eager to enter into an alliance against the West. The Russian people do not want to risk their new prosperity – and Russia’s elites are loath to give up their Swiss bank accounts, London mansions, and Mediterranean vacations. Although Russia is seeking greater military cooperation with China, Beijing does not seem eager to start a fight with Washington either .
“But if the current U.S.-Russian relationship deteriorates further, it will not bode well for the United States and would be even worse for Russia .(where) some top officials are beginning to champion the idea of a foreign policy realignment directed against the West .
“It would be reckless and shortsighted to push Russia in that direction by repeating the errors of the past, rather than working to avoid the dangerous consequences of a renewed U.S.-Russian confrontation. But ultimately, Moscow will have to make its own decisions. Given the Kremlin’s history of poor policy choices, a clash may come whether Washington likes it or not. And should that happen, the United States must approach this rivalry with greater realism and determination than it has displayed in its halfhearted attempts at partnership.”
Hot Spots will return in two weeks, Dec. 20. I’m in Germany next week.
Brian Trumbore
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