US-Russian Relations: Some Historical Parallels

Much has been made of the recent Russian decision to place short-range iskander missiles in Kaliningrad. Artemy Kalinovsky rightly pointed out in his latest post that the western media has been implying that the Russians are somehow acting in an aggressive or militarist way. However, if the situation is turned on its head and one ponders what the US response would be if the Russians were to (and we need to suspend reality here for a moment for the sake of the argument) place a radar system in Canada; it becomes clear that the Russian response is not out of order. It should be expected.

Indeed, history has provided us with a parallel to the situation in the form of the Cuban Missile Crisis. While the US reasoning in the current situation makes it clear that the radar and interceptors are not meant for Russian missiles, the two events share striking similarities insofar as they threaten to upset the nuclear status quo. What Washington and the US media fails to acknowledge, and Moscow knows too well, is that the missile interceptors would be useful in stopping Russian launched missiles as well. This is not often heard in the media. Washington has made it clear that it is not their intended purpose, but it does not change the reality to the Russians.

The issue of US radar and missile interceptors based in Poland and the Czech Republic speaks to the broader issue of the failure of the Bush Administration to respect Russian regional security concerns. No doubt this has been influenced by the legacy of the Cold War. Key players in the Administration: Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld and Richard Perle, were all advocates of hard-line approaches to US-Soviet relations under Nixon, Ford and Reagan. They seem to have failed to grasp that their policy of acting tough towards the Soviet Union was not key in hastening the end of the Cold War. They still feel that such an aggressive act is the correct path to increase US security and power. However, there are dozens of instances in the past 50 years that contradict such a sentiment. Every instance of belligerent behaviour towards the Russians has ended up with heightened tensions and a concurrent decrease in US security. According to the supporters of the Bush Administration, the installation of missiles is not aggressive. It is meant only to increase US security. Indeed, the Administration would contend that they have offered to share the radar with the Russians. Clearly someone needs to brief the Bush cabal on the concept of a ‘security dilemma.’ (Somewhat comically, one can only be reminded of Reagan’s assertion to Gorbachev that the US would share SDI technology, only to have an exasperated Gorbachev point out that the US would not even share milking machines.)

The recent Russian military resurgence is claimed to be a result of increased oil and gas revenues. But this is true only insofar as the Russians have someone to flex their rediscovered muscles towards and the US and West have provided that in the form of NATO expansion. If the expansion was intended to provoke a Russian response in order to justify the continued existence of NATO, then it has worked. However, past that, one has to wonder what the US hopes to get out of it. No less a Cold Warrior than George Kennan has stated that the eastward expansion of NATO is the biggest geo-strategic mistake since the end of the Cold War (he was speaking prior to 2003.)

Indeed, there are several parallels with prior pact expansions hurting US security. Eisenhower’s “Pactomania” ended up constraining more than it freed US resources or improved security. Both CENTO and SEATO are examples of this. In fact the pact expansion of the 1950’s and early 1960’s primarily increased the Soviet feeling of encirclement. It was such actions that in part motivated Khrushchev to expand the Cold War to the Third World. It must be asked, therefore, how the expansion of NATO to former Easter Bloc countries will increase US security? It is highly unlikely the world could expect a full military response to Russian aggression towards Romania or Bulgaria. NATO expansion has simply aggravated long standing Russian security concerns. It is not a complicated concept, which is what makes the US failure to pay heed to it all the more incredible.

This does not mean that the US should cosy up to the Russians or acquiesce to their demands. The US should most definitely protect what it sees as its interests on the Russian periphery. However, protection of interests and dialogue are not mutually exclusive. US-Russian relations through the Cold War have shown that the both sides have come out ahead when dialogue has been at its highest.

Perhaps what is most amazing is that the Bush Administration has still yet to learn the diplomatic lessons of the Cold War (this is all the more dumbfounding since all of the key policymakers were active participants.) President Medvedev’s recent speech was not nearly as hostile as it has been made to seem. Gregori Zhdanov spoke of the “outstretched hand under the clenched fist” regarding the creation of the Cominform. This same idea permeated relations between the two powers through the Cold War, and it remains today. President-Elect Obama has demonstrated that he understands subtleties better than Bush. Hopefully he will see what Bush failed to: the outstretched hand.

Obama and Medvedev - Improving US-Russian Relations

Moscow, Russia

After Dmitry Medvedev delivered his message to the Federation Council here last week, news outlets in the U.S. and Britain jumped on the Russian president’s seemingly hostile rhetoric regarding the planned missile defense system to be placed in Poland and the Czech Republic. Russia, Medvedev said, would respond by planting a system in Kaliningrad, on the Baltic Sea. The New York Times, which accompanied its coverage with a photo of troops on parade in Red Square, focused on his harsh words as well as the fact that that he did not congratulate Barack Obama on his election victory.

Yet these reports miss a number of essential points. Indeed, people I’ve spoken to here, some of them experienced watchers of Kremlin politics as well as US-Russian relations, thought the speech could prove to be an important marker in terms of a change in direction of domestic and foreign policy and the emergence of a distinct “Medvedev” policy that has not been evident since his inauguration in May.

Undeniably, the most notable elements of Medvedev’s speech had to do with domestic, not foreign, policy. He spoke about the importance of individual rights, battling with corruption, and economic freedom. His predecessors paid lip service to these principles, but what was striking was Medvedev’s tone and the fact that his words seemed to be directed at his own mentor and many of his supporters. (You can read the text for yourself here – try to ignore the slightly awkward translation).

What about Medvedev’s foreign policy?

Medvedev began the speech with a number of references to the summer’s events in Georgia and its two breakaway regions, Southern Ossetia and Abkhazia. He did not shy away from blaming Georgia for the conflict and insisting that NATO had overstepped its bounds. Most of the speech, however, avoided foreign policy. The message was “our priority is getting our own house in order.” And while critical of US policy in Georgia and on the missile-defense issue, it clearly left the door open for an improvement in relations: “I would stress that we have no issue with the American people, we do not have inherent anti-Americanism. And we hope that our partners, the new administration of the United States of America, will make a choice in favor of full-fledged relations with Russia.”

What would it take for the new administration to create a long standing, stable relationship with Russia?

First and foremost, it means being willing to accept limits. This includes limits on NATO expansion, and it may include abandoning the missile shield the Bush administration has worked to place in the Czech Republic and Poland. Why? Because Russia may come to terms with not being a global superpower, but it certainly will not abandon its status as a regional power. It demands respect and will lash out when its sphere of interest is violated. Contrary to the thinking of the outgoing administration and its intellectual supporters at AEI and the Project for a New American Century, not every region is equally important to the U.S. (Not surprisingly, Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister called Obama's staff last Friday and said that Russia would not go ahead with the Kaliningrad deployment if the U.S. refrains from its plans in Poland. Apparently Mr. Obama has already signalled the door is open for discussion on this question, which I view as a positive development and John Bolton does not.)

Second, the Obama administration should do what both Clinton and George W. Bush failed to do – treat Russia as a partner not only in words but deeds. The word partner is now only seen between quotation marks in Russia, because it is associated with a campaign, almost two decades old, to weaken Russia at the expense of its formal rivals. Making someone accept a reality they are powerless to change, which was the case with expansion of NATO in the 1990s, is not the same as partnership. Similarly, it was disappointing that US officials did not even seriously consider the Russian counterproposal to the missile shield. The Obama administration needs to involve Moscow in a real dialog on all such security issues, and be willing to cede ground at least some of the time.

Third, the administration needs to have a frank conversation with its counterparts about what each others’ limits are. It may not like everything it hears, but Moscow is much more likely to cooperate on issues important to the US – including Iran, Afghanistan, and Iraq, if it sees the US as willing to respect its influence in other areas, like Ukraine or Georgia. This may sound naïve, but it is these sort of conversations that have made cooperation between great powers (including the US and USSR) possible historically.

Finally, the new administration could take a number of steps to ease the mutual climate of suspicion, including permanently removing Russia from the Jackson-Vanik Ammendment and easing travel restrictions for Russians traveling to the US. Both the amendment, which links trade with Russia to freedom of emigration, and the costly and difficult visa process are seen as demeaning by many people here. Citizen’s from America’s other partners, like the EU states, don’t need a visa at all. Russia’s economic migrants are much more likely to head for Moscow or St. Petersburg rather than for the distant US; while a full visa-waiver program may be premature, the current regulations need to be relaxed. (US citizens who travel to Russia will also appreciate the reciprocal easing of the process that would follow on Moscow’s part.)

Would any or all of these measures create the kind of stable, peaceful relationship the US and Russia need? It is impossible to say for certain – Medvedev is still weaker internally than Putin, and the global economic crisis has left many things up in the air. Nevertheless, if Mr. Obama is serious about changing the way the US is seen in the world, Russia would be a perfect place to start.

The Obama Revolution: From Hustings to Reality

The Obama campaign turned American politics upside down. His approach to campaign financing revolutionised the rules of the game, and his use of the Internet and mobile web stirred unprecedented interest, brought people to the polls for the first time and produced a larger, more sceptical and informed electorate. Barack Obama portrayed himself as transcending politics, as a national reconciler, and as the harbinger of change in a disaffected country. No doubt President Obama has transformed American politics, but will he revolutionise American foreign policy as well?

Considering the nature of American politics, we may not be able to predict the tenets of President Obama’s foreign policy until after his official inauguration and after he has appointed the key decision-makers in his administration. What we do know is that campaign rhetoric rarely turns into presidential policy and that Obama’s policy will depend, of course, on how events unfold in the coming months.

Few President-elects have stirred so much emotion in America and risen to prominence with such high international approval ratings. Obama is a great symbol of change and progress in America, and his message is especially powerful considering the American and global public’s dissatisfaction with the George W. Bush administration. As such, President Obama is likely to respond to these expectations early in his presidency with a series of highly symbolic foreign policy decisions. He will shift the rhetoric away from Bush’s first term unilateralism and excessive reliance on military might. Obama’s first decisions will aim to repair America’s foreign relations and its reputation in the world. He will decide to close down Guantánamo Bay detention camp, end America’s policy of torture, reconsider extraordinary rendition and re-engage America as a leader in multilateral negotiations for a global climate regime.

Such decisions will be easy for Obama to promise and they will earn him much applause around the world. When the applause dies down however, challenges will abound. Closing Guantánamo will require him to jump through a complex set of legal and political hurdles, while concluding negotiations on climate change will require unprecedented co-operation between the big emitters as well as leadership and vision. Obama’s campaign provided few signposts for a new direction in foreign policy. Generally speaking, he will define the war on terror more narrowly and he will broaden the foreign policy agenda to include human security concerns, climate change, public health and organized crime. In a symbolic shift, the war on terror will no longer dictate the means and ends of American foreign policy. In a sense, his approach recalls the Clinton years – which focused on globalisation and humanitarian concerns – and the post-Vietnam era, when Republicans clung to Cold War thinking and Democrats acknowledged the Sino-Soviet split and the environmental agenda.

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Lisa Aronsson is Head of the Transatlantic Programme at RUSI and a Fellow of the LSE IDEAS Transatlantic Project