Russia: Other Points of View

THE AMERICAN MISSION AND THE “EVIL EMPIRE”

David Foglesong's speech at Stanford University, May 19, 2009

I would like to begin by saying a few words about how I came to write The American Mission and the “Evil Empire” and what I was trying to do in that book.

When I was a graduate student at Berkeley twenty years ago I was trained in traditional diplomatic history.  My dissertation generally reflected that approach, with its emphasis on the narrative details of how Americans sought in limited, indirect, and secretive ways to help non-Bolshevik Russians retake power after the revolution of October 1917. 

As I was turning the dissertation into my first book in the early 1990s, much of the American public discussion of Russia centered on how the revolution of 1991 had opened the way for the rapid transformation of Russia into a democratic, capitalist, and Christian country.  Since that conception seemed to me to parallel the euphoric American misinterpretation of the revolution of February 1917 , I became interested in examining the origins of an American messianic drive to liberate and remake Russia that I believed had distorted American perspectives on Russia before, during, and after the Cold War.  So, in the project I started when I was a fellow at the Hoover Institution in 1995, one of my ambitions was to challenge the obsessive conventional focus on “the Cold War” of 1945-1989 as a unique and discrete epoch. 

To access the full text, please click here Download David_Foglesong_Stanford_Lecture_May_19_2009

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Budget priorities. On Monday Medvedev outlined the budget priorities for 2010-2012 to the government. He listed ten: maintain social spending; reduce budget deficit; cut costs; support the industrial and financial sectors; improve the quality of public services; improve the public procurement system; set an “economically justified tax burden”; make authorities responsible for effective spending; establish a “reliable and balanced pension system”; put in place “a barrier-free environment for people with disabilities”. Nothing on defence.

Russia-EU Summit. The summit was held in Khabarovsk (Moscow wanted to show the Europeans just how big Russia is) last week. As is normal with such meetings, the results will only become clear after time. It seems to me that Europe is more open to Russia – I still maintain that the August war was a reality check for most Europeans about the nature of Saakashvili’s regime and the way events were drifting. Perhaps a first sign is the Italian Foreign Minister’s saying that the EU should “enhance strategic relations” with Russia. The summit discussed security (with at least rhetorical openness to Medvedev’s proposals about a new security structure), energy (see Ukraine entry below – another reality check for Europe that perhaps the gas supply problem does not begin and end in Moscow). Press conference is avaialable here.

AIRBRUSHING HISTORY

by Patrick Armstrong

“Other countries could blame Russia for their lost decades; Russia, having no one to blame, couldn't face its history” This piece of rhetorical puffery appeared about two years ago as an explanation for Russia’s alleged “de-democratization”. Not only does it ignore such things as the abortive trial of the CPSU in May 1992 and the Butovo Memorial, but it has a serious blind spot: the former communist countries have not come to terms with the fact that many of their people eagerly participated in the Bolshevik experiment and that they have a share of responsibility in the disaster. Bolshevism was not a purely “Russian” phenomenon.

A Latvian government commission has been working away to produce a monetary figure to put on the losses suffered by Latvia as a result of its incorporation into the USSR from 1940 to 1990. It has not finished its calculations yet, and may never, but the numbers that are bruited about are in the many billions. When it completes its work, the final number will be as accurate or as inaccurate as such numbers will always be.

RUSSIA'S NEW SECURITY POLICY

ARTICLE CRITIQUE

by Gordon Hahn

Although the article reviewed here is hardly the most egregious example of media bias in the U.S. mainstream media’s reporting on Russia. It is actually instructive regarding some of the techniques used to get a more sensational story than one which actually exists.  In this Time article, mistranslation and reordering phrases are used to give Russia's mid-May "National Security Strategy to 2020" a more sinister edge than it in fact has.  At times, the article contradicts itself in order to maintain the sensational at the expense of the more mundane and accurate.

To access the full analysis, please click here Download Time_Wendle_May_09

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Demographics. Medvedev gave an interview the other day, in which he spoke about what the government was doing about Russia’s demographic problems. The problem has two “ends”: too few births and too many early deaths and the government has put effort into both ends. A number of specialist cardiovascular centres (he visited one today) are being created around Russia “we know that cardiovascular disease is the biggest cause of death here” and the program to encourage births is having its effect as well: “The number of childbirths has increased by almost 7 percent over the last year… At the same time, there has been a decrease in infant mortality….” RosStat’s figures show that these programs are starting to bite. While Russia is still losing population, the net loss has been reduced by about 300,000 since 2006 (2006 – 637,200 net loss; 2007 – 442,700; 2008 – 337,300). 2009’s figures show continuing progress. 2006-2008 saw births up by about 200,000 and deaths down by about 90,000. In short, alarmist pieces about Russia’s demographic collapse are starting to look outdated. Added to which, Russia is not the only country with a shrinking population.

RUSSIA, U.S.: START TALKS BEGIN

REPRINTS

Stratfor.com

U.S. and Russian negotiators began a three-day meeting in Moscow on May 19 to work out a replacement for the 1991 START I treaty, which expires at the end of 2009. START is the document governing strategic nuclear weapons in the two countries, and the nuclear parity the treaty legally establishes serves as the cornerstone of the broader U.S.-Russian relationship.

Normally, nuclear arms talks are tedious affairs that require years to negotiate. They involve representatives from both states' intelligence, military and diplomatic communities and necessitate seemingly endless discussion of painstaking details about weapon systems, delivery methods, timetables and inspection regimes.

Ironically, this time the devil may not be in the details.

It appears this time around that all of the technical details already have been broadly agreed to and the militaries have either signed off or been sidelined. The instruction from the political leadership on both sides seems to be to get a deal done as soon as possible - probably within mere weeks.

MEDVEDEV'S JUDICIAL REFORMS: DON'T PRE-JUDGE

COMMENTARY

by Gordon M. Hahn

Recent reaction to the Russian president Dmitry Medvedev's proposals to change the system through which the Russian Constitutional Court's chair is selected has been almost universally interpreted as an illiberal move 'unmasking' his increasingly liberal image and polices.  The real picture is much less sinister and perhaps a step toward further reforms down the road.

Under the present system, all 19 of the Constitutional Court's judges are appointed by the Federation Council upon presidential nomination. After the court is formed, the judges elect their chair, a deputy chair and court secretary by secret ballot, and these posts are held by the winners for three years. Medvedev is proposing amendments which stipulate that the chair and two deputy chairs (eliminating the court secretary position) should be elected for three years but by members of the Russian legislature's upper chamber, the Federation Council, upon presidential nomination.

RUSSIA, U.S. TO OPEN START TALKS MAY 19 IN MOSCOW

RIA NOVOSTI,

May 15, 2009 

MOSCOW, May 15 (RIA Novosti) - The first round of full-format Russia-U.S. talks on a new strategic arms reduction treaty will be held on May 19-21 in Moscow, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said Friday. He said they would be "the first substantive discussion" of a new treaty, not "simply an exchange of opinions."

The Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty (START 1), signed in 1991, makes it incumbent on Russia and the United States to reduce nuclear warheads to 6,000 and their delivery vehicles to 1,600 each. The treaty expires on December 5 this year.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last month that any new deal to replace START 1 must also cover delivery systems. Medvedev and U.S. President Barack Obama agreed at their first meeting in London in April on an immediate start to talks on a new strategic arms reduction treaty.

U.S.-RUSSIAN RELATIONS AND THE WAR AGAINST JIHADISM

POLICY PAPERS

by Gordon M. Hahn

A Century Foundation Report

At the September 2008 World Policy Conference in Evian, France, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for a new European security architecture and a new quality of interaction in combating nonproliferation, narco-business, and terrorism. The Barack Obama administration should take up his offer, pursuing aggressively the most robust level of U.S.-Russian cooperation in the war against violent Islamism or jihadism possible. In addition to security cooperation, joint soft power measures are needed to drain the pond of ideological extremism and poverty in which violent Islamism spawns and from which jihadists recruit.

U.S. and Russian interests overlap considerably on this crucial national security issue. Moreover, by maximizing cooperation in areas of common interest and threat, such as counterterrorism, we can contain and possibly overcome differences on more vexing issues in the U.S.-Russian relationship.

Although it makes sense for Washington and Moscow to establish closer cooperation, even an outright alliance in the struggle against jihadism, this has not happened for a number of reasons. First of all, there has been a significant decline in the overall U.S.-Russia relationship in recent years, which complicates the prospects of counterterrorism cooperation and operations. Thus, Britain’s MI5 chief Jonathan Evans noted his "disappointment" that he is forced to devote so many resources to countering Russian and Chinese espionage efforts instead of fighting international terrorism. Other factors impeding U.S.-Russian efforts are institutional, bureaucratic, and cultural resistance to cooperation in any areas involving important secrets relating to national security, as well as differences in threat and interest perceptions in the various fronts in the war against jihadism.

PREVENTING A NEW CRIMEAN WAR

REPRINTS

by Andrei Tsygankov

reprinted from RFE/RL

May 15, 2009 -- The Russia-Georgia war in August 2008 has seriously exacerbated Russia’s already damaged relationships with the West. If the Republican presidential nominee, Senator John McCain, had won last November’s election in the United States, the two countries might have moved to the next level of confrontation – possibly of a military nature.

Few people in the U.S. political class have been more ardent in advocating U.S. ties with the small Georgia at the expense of relations with Russia. Some of McCain’s advisers are also known to have worked as paid lobbyists for Georgia’s membership in NATO. Clearly they are not concerned that, had Georgia been a member of the alliance when the violence erupted in South Ossetia, the United States would be in a state of war with Russia.

The economic crisis shifted public attention away from other issues of international politics and assisted Barak Obama in focusing the campaign on domestic recovery. However, a confrontation between the United States and Russia over the Caucasus may still be in the offing.