by Vlad Sobell
When my son was a toddler, he believed that the wind was caused by trees moving their “arms” (that is, branches) and that the wind would stop once the trees kept their “arms” still. The proposition that the recent attempt at US-Russia détente – unnecessarily given the fashionable term “reset” – is driven by the will of President Obama, or even by the “pragmatism” of such minor officials/academics as Michael McFaul, Washington’s next ambassador to Russia, is surely just as childish.
Any adult with an ounce of understanding of history and the basic laws of economics knows that America’s post-war empire has fatally overextended itself and that it needs urgently to adjust its global ambitions in line with the brutal reality of its economic bankruptcy. A state which has managed to run up unsustainable fiscal deficits and sovereign debt and whose political system, moreover, is so dysfunctional that it does not yet understand the seriousness of its condition (never mind being able to begin to deliver a credible way out of the crisis) is not equipped to embark on another Cold War with Russia.
That may be contrary to the wishes of the likes of President Saakashvili, but such are the facts on the ground. Last week this message was most dramatically delivered by Robert Gates when he bluntly told a gathering of NATO officials that unless Europe starts paying for its own defence, the alliance might as well be disbanded.
Lest there be any doubts about the economic underpinning of Obama’s attempt at détente, let me refer to the IMF’s conclusion that the US needs to make a cumulative, long-term fiscal adjustment of more than 11% of GDP in order to reduce its debt/GDP ratio from the current level of about 100% to 60% in 2030 (i.e., to the so-called “Maastricht level, required from applicants for membership in the Eurozone). Writing in London’s Financial Times recently, a former Goldman Sachs economist and adviser to the British government commented that, among the advanced economies, this required adjustment is exceeded only by Ireland and Japan and is “much larger than anything the US has been able to achieve in the past”.
While the US’s financial morass (a result of not least of the hyper-power delusions of the Bush administration and, more recently, the severe recession) has intensified, its global so-called “autocratic” rivals, China and Russia, have witnessed sweeping economic transformation and spectacular secular resurgence. Ditching communism (that is, doing the things the West had long urged them to do), they have unleashed the raw power of capitalism and markets (albeit state-driven, especially in the case of China) and are beating the West at its own game. Their economic and, hence, military might is bound to grow proportionately.
Under these conditions, seeking an accommodation with Moscow is the West’s only hope of forestalling the emergence of a Sino-Russian alliance based on Russia’s raw materials and fuels (plus military technology) and Chinese labour, commercial acumen and, increasingly, technological prowess. Assisting the rise of such a Eurasian giant, immune to any Western geo-political pressure, would be a folly of incalculable proportions.
Of course, the new Cold War warriors, hiding their heads in the sand in Washington and European capitals, will protest and call Obama a traitor. But a détente with Russia is the only realistic way forwards. It offers the hope of preventing another costly arms race, besides allowing the US to disengage with the semblance of credibility from Afghanistan and/or moderating its unnecessary conflict with Iran. Against this background, the appointment of Mr McFaul or anyone for that matter (even if he/she holds radically different views from the new appointee) as US ambassador to Moscow, has zero practical significance.
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