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New York Times
October 21, 2001
Road to U.S.-Russia Alliance Is Still Unmapped
By MICHAEL WINES
MOSCOW, Oct. 20 -- Ahead of the meeting in Shanghai on Sunday between Presidents Vladimir V. Putin and George W. Bush, it may appear that the shock of last month's terror attacks has wiped away eight decades of rivalry and left a clean slate for a rewrite of East-West history.
The two leaders may well rewrite history -- eventually. But the seemingly whirlwind rapprochement they are conducting is neither so sudden nor so straightforward.
In an interview on Friday, a senior Bush administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Sunday meeting would be more about plotting the future of the Russian-American relationship than actually building it.
"What we want to do in Shanghai is to lay out, in very broad terms, how we think this relationship can move forward — to lay out things we think can be done at the summit in Crawford, and get Putin's reaction," that official said. He was referring to the next meeting of the two presidents, set for November at Mr. Bush's ranch in Crawford, Tex.
He said the United States hoped to leave Shanghai with a to-do list of concrete proposals that the Russian and American bureaucracies could then burnish for the presidents' approval next month.
The public might be forgiven for expecting something more, or something faster. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, a relationship whose underlying theme had been Russian resentment of so-called American global hegemony has appeared to flower into something not seen since World War II: a genuine alliance between Moscow and the West.
Competing Soviet and capitalist ideologies fated that old alliance to crumble once Hitler was defeated. With that ideological roadblock now removed, diplomats and historians alike see a historic chance to anchor Russia to Western norms, for the first time in a millennium.
President Boris N. Yeltsin shared that vision, but had neither the political backing nor a common goal with the West.
Mr. Putin has the political power. But until Sept. 11, it was not clear that he shared either the Western vision or a common goal.
Robert Legvold of Columbia University, a historian and Russia scholar, said in a recent interview that the alliance against terrorism seemed to have answered both questions.
"Potentially, at least, this begins to clarify something that Russians under Yeltsin in his last year, and Putin in his administration, had refused to clarify — that is, `Who are we?' " he said.
"There's enormous potential," he said. "But there's no guarantee that it's going to be realized."
In fact, both Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush face opposition to a broad Russian-American alliance within their governments. To differing degrees, there is also opposition among their people.
Americans are wary of a Kremlin that, many say, has ignored basic human-rights standards in its war against Chechen rebels, and has more or less openly used its political muscle to crush critics in the press.
The White House must contend with deep suspicion of Russian intentions on its political right and with resistance to an alliance in the Pentagon and the intelligence establishment.
Mr. Putin faces the same problems. Cold war sentiments dominate the Russian military and intelligence bureaucracies, and anti-Americanism courses broadly, if not deeply, through the average Russian's political outlook.
The new Russian-American alliance is not as whirlwind as it at first appears: Mr. Putin has shown an affinity for a Western tilt all along, some experts say, but lacked a compelling cause to which it could be hitched.
Terrorism is almost tailor-made for that purpose. Like almost all Slavic Russians, Mr. Putin is seized by the belief that the revolt in Chechnya is part of a larger plot not just to turn Central Asia and southern Russia into an Islamic extremist empire but also to begin the dismemberment of the Russian state.
Moreover, Russians still reel from a series of terrorist bombings in Moscow and elsewhere two years ago that killed more than 300 people and maimed scores more.
Mr. Putin has played his new hand with unusual skill inside and outside Russia. In the process, he has made what was previously unthinkable seem almost tangible.
For the first time in a decade, there is serious talk about Russia's eventual entry into the NATO alliance. It is likely that the United States and Europe will soon propose some interim measure that would bind Russia more closely to the European security framework.
The United States is moving swiftly to certify Russia as a market- economy state and to speed up its membership in the World Trade Organization.
Moreover, American policy in Chechnya has changed markedly to acknowledge the presence of Islamic terrorists there and to support Russia's demand for their removal.
The United States recently sent a message to Aslan Maskhadov, the pro-rebel president of Chechnya, demanding that he sever all contacts with terrorists or face American isolation.
Only last March, the United States had been allowing Mr. Maskhadov's foreign minister to visit the United States over Russia's bitter protests to meet with a midlevel State Department official.
When President Eduard Shevardnadze of Georgia, Chechnya's southern neighbor, visited the United States last month, American officials also pressed him strongly to deal with a longstanding population of Islamic guerrillas who have moved into Georgia masquerading as Chechen war refugees.
American benefits from the new closeness to Russia are limited mostly to what Mr. Putin has promised: airspace for American relief aid to Afghanistan, help with search-and- rescue missions for Western troops, encouragement to Central Asian nations asked to accommodate the American military and intelligence on the Taliban.
The senior administration official said on Friday that both Washington and Moscow were very pleased with the new cooperation among their intelligence agencies, although "it is difficult to say how this is going to play itself out."
In fact, there are real questions about how Russian-American cooperation will fare when the American antiterror campaign turns to nations closer to Russia, like Iraq.
Some experts say the two men have nevertheless made a good start, rooted in preparations that began well before September — and in an unusual personal chemistry.
Mr. Bush appears to have decided to make Russia a top international priority in the early months of his presidency. At the same time, a bipartisan group of retired United States senators working for the nonprofit East-West Institute began exploring the state of Russian-American relations, visiting both Mr. Putin and Mr. Bush — and found themselves struck by the potential.
Both men saw themselves as men who had not lusted for their presidencies, but almost had them thrust into their hands — in Mr. Putin's case, by a resignation; in Mr. Bush's, by a Republican longing to repeat his father's triumph. And both viewed the job as a historic opportunity to set a common agenda, John E. Mroz, president of the East-West Institute, said in a telephone interview on Friday.
And when both men met for the first time, in Ljubljana, Slovenia, last June, they struck an immediate friendship based in part on their religious faiths and commitments to families. After Slovenia, "it was very, very clear that these two men had locked in in a way that could make for historic change," Mr. Mroz said.
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