#11
Nezavisimaya Gazeta
No. 197
October 23, 2001
[translation from RIA Novosti for personal use only]
WILL RUSSO-US RAPPROCHEMENT AFFECT PUTIN'S POLITICAL
PRESTIGE AT HOME?
Opinion by this newspaper's experts
Sergei MARKOV, Institute of Political Studies:
The Americans are pondering deeply what they can give to Russia, but Russia has not yet formulated an answer. I believe that the point at issue should be strategic decisions of first magnitude. One such decision - and the most important one - concerns the involvement of Russia in a new system of collective security of the West European countries, which should replace NATO. After that, other practical steps should be taken, such as the admission of the Russian defence industries to the NATO countries' arms markets. Russia must make vital decisions and general rules of the game of the new international order must be elaborated. We need a new security system in the place of NATO.
Second, Russia must be legally recognised as a market economy country and actually a democratic country. Russia must be given normal conditions of admission to the WTO without artificial barriers. The USA must stop its energetic policy of deterring Russia on the post-Soviet space. The USA must lay down the law with its allies - Turkey, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia and Poland, which give shelter to Chechen terrorists.
Unless the USA makes these steps towards Russia, the only thing Putin will be able to do is move back. And the point at issue is not so much the fall of his rating at home. The thing is that his policy must bring dividends to the country. If a policy is not beneficial to the country and does not meet national state interests, the president must change it.
Igor BUNIN, Centre of Political Technologies:
Many members of the Russian political and military elite suffered from inferiority complexes when the USA became the world's only superpower and Russia ceased to be a political pole of global scale. But Putin chose in favour of the West and the elite's criticism seemingly petered out. This prompts a rather traditional conclusion: our elite is opportunistic, yet it always follows the leader. It is pragmatic and thinks above all about its own mercantile interests. And the military elite is not an exception. They also suffer from the ex-superpower complex, but opposition cannot be based on complexes. I don't think there will be genuine protest.
There is a struggle for a place in this unipolar world. Russia's goal in this world is to preserve its positions in the CIS, a process which I think will be very difficult. The USA will always reply to our generous gestures by symbolic and not so practical actions, taken with considerable delay. Chechnya is a graphic example. But in point of fact, nobody is preventing Russia from acting as it does. There was a much stronger shift at the level of silent agreements.
Mark URNOV, political scientist:
I think the Americans will not resist Russia's admission to the WTO now, that there will be a much more polite dialogue on ABM, and possibly a softer regime of debt restructuring. It is difficult to say this about other problems, yet they will be resolved through dialogue, too. A part of the Russian elite believe that Putin's prestige has been undermined, the more so that anti-American sentiments were very strong in Russia. But the president's rating with the people remains rather high. I think that the president is rather strong in the current system of power and has enough supporters in all structures, including military ones. So, the elite will have to adjust itself to this.
Viktor ILYUKHIN, State Duma deputy:
Putin probably hopes that the USA would influence its Western partners, including the IMF, in terms of granting Russia a deferment in debt repayment. But I fear that this will not happen. The West needs Russia as a raw materials appendage. It never thought, and will not think about reviving Russia's might. The strategic plans of the USA and NATO do not mention the revival of the economic and military might of Russia. I think in this sphere Putin is acting naively, as an inexperienced politician, or is actually moving in the wake of the Gorbachev-Yeltsin policy, when everything was to let and for sale without reciprocal guarantees.
I can assure you that not all military, including at the top, were happy with the liquidation of our military bases in Vietnam and Cuba. Putin will yet have problems in this sphere.
Russia must not depend on one person. We need legal and political protection against voluntarism, which the Soviet and subsequently Russian leaders forced on us in the past 15 years.
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