Russia Profile
June 24, 2008
Waiting it Out
The United States and Russia Are About to Put Their Relationship on Hold
Comment by Vladimir Frolov
Last week, a trilateral conference involving Russia, the Unites States, and the EU took place in Berlin, organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations. It appears that Germany is more concerned about Russia’s relationship with the West than either of these two parties themselves, and while the United States chooses to wait and see what happens to Russia’s foreign policy under Medvedev, the foreign policy ideas of both of its presidential candidates do not bode well for the future of the relationship.
As the world’s capitals attempt to decipher the foreign policy implications of Dmitry Medvedev’s election as Russia’s third president while the United States inexorably moves toward a historic and tumultuous presidential transition, the U.S.-Russian relations slide into a period of disengagement and strategic inaction, which Europe and the world at large can ill afford.
Such was the underlying theme at the trilateral Russia-United States-EU conference in Berlin last week, organized by the German Council on Foreign Relations and sponsored by the U.S. National Intelligence Council.
A senior U.S. official summed up the prevailing mood in Washington following Medvedev’s election as “caution and skepticism,” a “wait and see attitude” on how the Russian political transition turns out, and whether Medvedev’s milder style will translate into new substance.
The United States does not expect any major change in Moscow’s foreign policy under Medvedev right off the bat. Vladimir Putin’s international agenda remains highly popular with the Russian people, and the United States has to recognize that attempts to radically shift gears in Moscow on the foreign policy front will be resisted internally.
Foreign policy and intelligence professionals in Washington see that hot-button issues on the U.S.-Russian agenda like missile defense, the CFE treaty, Kosovo and NATO enlargement--will demand interaction, but prospects for a productive engagement with Moscow are believed to be small, at least until the new U.S. administration starts to engage Russia, following a strategic policy review.
But Washington also seems to be concerned that the current disagreements on missile defense, NATO enlargement, and Kosovo would become stronger in the short run, and thus set the scene for a negative direction in the relationship following the presidential transition in the United States.
This is a very valid concern, and, after listening to what senior foreign policy advisors for Barack Obama and John McCain had to say at the conference, one walks away with a strong sense that this might well turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Both Obama’s and McCain’s camps talk about the need to assign top-priority to getting the relationship with Russia right, and criticize the George Bush administration for “feigning friendship” with Russia. Yet it is striking how little they have learned about Russia’s foreign policy after Putin’s speech in Munich, and how poorly they understand the interplay of domestic and international factors of the Russian leadership.
The result is a naïve belief in both camps that the United States can get cooperation and deals from Russia on strategic arms and non-proliferation, while Washington continues to lecture Moscow on how Ukraine’s membership in NATO would be good for Russia.
On Obama’s side, a welcome interest in re-launching the strategic arms-control agenda is bundled up with immense arrogance and proselytizing zeal when it comes to reviewing the reasons behind Russia’s assertive international conduct.
Russia’s tensions with Georgia, for example, are ascribed to the fact that Russia is moving away from an imperial state toward a regional nation-state with regional ambitions. Wait a second, wasn’t it until recently explained by Russia’s “imperial ambitions”? Obama’s people see Russia trying to exploit United States’ weaknesses resulting from American entanglement in Iraq. This is a provocative statement, particularly against the backdrop of the well-known record of Putin trying to talk Bush out of the Iraq debacle. And it also presupposes a U.S. policy that would seek to roll back Russia’s international gains, ostensibly achieved at America’s expense. One wonders where such policy might eventually lead to.
Obama’s people’s “big idea” on Russia is to “create a context in which Russia will view its interests as more beneficial in a Euro-Atlantic relationship.” How? Via three major policy initiatives: “tell Russia that it would be good if your neighbors would fear you less;” “strive to get Russia to understand that the United States is not conspiring against Russia” in the Former Soviet Union (“orange revolutions” are not instigated by the United States, “just cheer leaded” from Washington); and tell Russia that “the United States helping to get Ukraine into NATO is a way to help Russia to get to the Euro-Atlantic Community.” Really? What are they expecting to hear in return? Whom are they kidding?
McCain’s camp is no better. While promising to “deal with the Russia that exists” and “focus on cooperation where possible and clarity where not possible,” McCain’s advisors are pushing the same lecturing approach to Russia as Obama’s people.
“The direction of Russia is a concern.” “Georgia’s and Ukraine’s membership in NATO will be good for Russia as its trade with those nations would grow.” The Caucuses should be viewed “not as a divide, but as a bridge to the Caspian.” “The bar in the G8 should be raised higher for Russia, although expelling Russia from the club is not feasible” (translation: of course, we would love to kick you out, but the Europeans would not let us). “Democratic nations need to discuss policy as a smaller group first and agree among themselves, before presenting their positions to Russia and others” (“League of Democracies Light” we will first meet as a G7 and then invite Russia in for questioning).
These are great ideas. They have but one defect they are unacceptable to Russia. The United States will find itself vigorously pushed back, were it to pursue some of this lofty stuff seriously. The impression you get from listening to this propaganda is that there is little interest in Washington in changing anything in its approach to Russia, in order to move toward a more cooperative relationship. As a senior Obama advisor put it, “the possibility for a broader Russia-United States accommodation has been missed; we have cold peace now.”
Change is expected to come only from Russia. There is a lot of talk about Medvedev needing to pass all sorts of litmus tests to prove that he will pursue a more accommodating direction and abandon Putin’s hard-line posture. The idea that Medvedev apparently does not see the need to prove anything to anyone in the West, and thus is unlikely to meet these expectations, has not evidently occurred to these people.
You get a feeling that the West is desperately waiting for another Mikhail Gorbachev and another Eduard Shevardnadze in Moscow, so that, without changing anything in its own policies, the West will get what it wants from Russia for free. They fail to notice that the Russian political system has evolved in a way that precludes an appearance of another Gorbachev or Shevardnadze. The fact that Medvedev got the same foreign policy advisors as Putin is strong evidence that a “systemic disintegrator” has no chance of getting his hands on the levers of Russian foreign policy.
The West is just wasting precious time by nurturing expectations of another “new thinking” coming out of Moscow under Medvedev.
Germany alone is seeking to broaden the positive agenda with Russia by proposing and already implementing a Partnership for Modernization. This is a small-steps program of bilateral engagement in new areas like energy efficiency, rule of law, health policies, infrastructure upgrades, and the training of municipal, regional and federal state officials. Berlin is seeking to capitalize on the visible desire on the Russian side not to have the relationship dominated by disagreements on NATO enlargement, Kosovo and Abkhazia, and focus on win-win programs that broaden Russia’s positive interaction with Europe. It is Germany that appears to be most concerned with the prospect of “strategic inaction” between Russia and the United States.
Russia itself is contributing to this sense of strategic inaction by coming up with policy initiatives that leave more questions than answers. Medvedev’s call in Berlin for a new all-European security treaty and an all-European summit has left many in the West openly incredulous about the true meaning of this sweeping proposal.
The amorphous way it was presented made it, as one senior U.S. official told me in Berlin, “extremely difficult to respond to.” For two weeks now, no one on the Russian side has bothered to clarify such “small matters” as who is going to be invited to the conference, and what specifically will be discussed. No one in Moscow has yet come up with an outline of the next steps to get to the conference. The Kremlin is running the risk that the bold initiative will be left hanging in the air.
Although well-intended as a means to engage the West on a broader set of issues and to take a step back from the current disagreements, Medvedev’s initiative has been sloppily prepared and perhaps rushed through to have the new president say something glamorous during his first trip to the West. This is not the way to launch a foreign policy offensive.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has repeatedly talked about taking a strategic pause to reassess the current state of affairs between Russia and the West. He may well get it. The only question is - does Moscow know what to do after the pause?