Date: Wed, 03 Dec 2008
Subject: Advice to the Obama Administration
From: Mikhail Kazachkov <mkazach@gmail.com>
This is the season to offer advice to the new administration. Those with access do it directly. Others like me seek to put their advice in circulation.
Remarkably, in foreign policy punditry there is a gap nobody seems to be willing to fill. Lots of published advice on Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, China and India. But Russia is avoided. It is mentioned, invariably last on most problem lists, but that’s it. This worries me. Not the least because the Russian side of the president-elect’s foreign policy team is full of Clintonites, i.e. the very people who turned Russia from a newly acquired friend to almost an enemy. The Bushies just haplessly ignored the slow cementing of the Kremlin’s hostile attitudes.
What makes Russia so different from the other challenges the new administration is about to face? First, there is hardly another nation which is less enthralled with Barack Obama and I mean the people, not just the Kremlin. Most of the world is stalled in owe, hope, and anticipation of the long awaited wonders the Obama Washington will bring. The Russians are not expect anything much new or encouraging. This is not going to make things easy for Lady Hillary. But then this is merely a tactical hurdle.
Strategically Russia presents a qualitatively different challenge than all the other rising powers. Because it is not rising anew, like Brazil, India or even China. Russia is reclaiming its global role. For her the claim has a millennium long history. Actually, what makes Russian challenge so special goes even deeper than history.
What makes a nation a superpower? Powerful economy, military, a nuclear arsenal alone do not suffice. Imagine such resources of France or Germany increased to the U.S. level you would still not see a leader with superpower ambition. We should also stop wondering why China is not claiming a superpower role. Aside from resources and capacities, it takes a certain mind set, a particular view of the world and the nation’s place in it. There is a condition necessary (though not sufficient) to be a superpower: a nation must feel like one. Its national self image must include responsibility not merely for the future of itself, but of humanity in general.
There are only two such naturally messianic nations in the modern world the U.S. and Russia (plus the extra-national movement for an Islamic caliphate).
The new world order allowing for sustainable growth through continuing globalization cannot be merely multipolar. To avoid the like of a restrictive 19th century European balance of power arrangement, it must also include an unprecedented level of international cooperation and coordination. Put aside extra-national entities like Al-Quaeda and states balancing on the brink of failure like Pakistan for now. Among stable international players arguably the toughest to recruit into genuine cooperation today will be Russia. Approach her on the same basis as India or Brazil, and failure is all but guaranteed.
Now is it really worth while for America to extend Russia a special treatment (what that treatment might be is outside the scope of this text)? Lets see... A huge, essentially European Christian nation with an essentially problem free large, mostly secular Muslim community; and with energy reserves comparable to those of all the Islamic world sounds like a rather valuable ally. And a committed American friend until the Clinton administration pushed it away.
Do not take my word for it: just look up “A Fateful Error,” George Kennan’s prephetic NYT’s OpEd of February 5, 1997. He practically verbatim predicted all the things we and many Russians are now unhappy about the Kremlin’s policies. Kennan argued all that will be the inevitable result of NATO enlargement which he deemed totally unnecessary. Why did Bill Clinton do it? To use his own words explaining his escapade with Monica: “for the worst of all possible reasons because I could.”
Fortunately, Barak Obama cannot any more neglect the very special challenge Russia presents for that worst of all possible reasons. The question now is whether his largely Clintonite Russian policy team will be willing to start cleaning up the Russia policy mess they have themselves created.