Russia: Other Points of View

Russia and U.S. Lead Calls to Reduce Nuclear Arsenals

REPRINTS

New York Times, February 8, 2010

By Judy Dempsey

MUNICH — For many years, the Munich Security Conference has been dominated by rivalry and suspicion between Russia and the United States. The suspicion continues to be fueled by Russian hatred of the idea of NATO expansion even further eastward, eventually admitting Ukraine.

But at the conference this weekend, the atmosphere was markedly different. On arms control, both sides tried to determine whether it was at all possible for President Barack Obama to realize his vision of a world without nuclear weapons. The debate was free of polemics and recriminations.

With North Korea already having acquired nuclear weapons and Iran seemingly determined to acquire them, and with the increase of international terrorism, U.S. and Russia officials said here that they believed the Cold War dominated by two nuclear superpowers was truly over.

Bashing Russia, Kowtowing to Beijing, and Avoiding Responsibility - One Russian Liberal's Formula for Failure

COMMENTARY

Response to Lilia Shevtsova's "The Kremlin Kowtow - Why have Western leaders and intellectuals gone soft on Russia's autocracy?" www.foreignpolicy.com, January 5, 2010.

by Gordon M. Hahn

In a recent article, Carnegie Endowment Moscow Center political analyst Lilia Shevtsova issues a complaint toward Westerners who cautions America's leaders 'not to put Russia's democratization' at the top of America's agenda for U.S.-Russian relations.  From her point of view, Dr. Shevtsova's complaint is natural.  Western-oriented Russian liberals have in the past counted on the U.S. to support their battles with the Kremlin.  However, today the West is burdened by grave security challenges for which it needs Moscow's help; it cannot risk further alienating Moscow.  Shevtsova's "values-based" pro-democracy model is a Cold War model which today could do irreparable damage to West-Russian relations.

The U.S. simply cannot uphold Russian liberals today as it once did Soviet dissidents, and we should not conceptualize Russian state-society relations as a modified version of Soviet state-society relations.  Russia has come along way from the Soviet totalitarian model.  The Soviet system's omnipresent repression and cruelty created state-society relations that Anna Akhmatova once described accurately in the early 1950s as two Russias confronting each other: one, the imprisoned - the other, their wardens. Thus, Western leaders had reason to suspect during the Cold war that hatred of the communist regime inside the USSR was such that, there was a thirst for democracy and freedom - and sooner or later, it would have to be quenched.  If and when the Soviet system opened up, movement to democracy and the market could be expected.

RELATIONSHIP WITH RUSSIA

ROPV CONTRIBUTORS

 by Charles Heberle

It is past time that we put our relationship with Russia on course which will include national self-interest, geopolitical realities, and common sense.  What’s needed is a general rethinking of our entire view of Russia throughout our nation.

Unfortunately today, a sensible approach to Russia is unpopular in America.  Why?  The reasons are many and widespread.  The history of relations with Russia has been fraught with mystery and ill assumptions, many on the American side.  David Foglesong, historian at Rutgers University says in his book "The American Mission and the 'Evil Empire"" it started with the America's historic foreign policy goal which has always been to spread "our" way of life to the rest of the world.  Russia has been sort of a mirror image of the US in that they began building their country at about the same time, had a "manifest destiny" to build a continental size nation, and have been a Christian nation with exception of the communist era.  However, throughout their history, they have been non-democratic which has made us look at them as an 'evil twin' much of the time.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

 by Patrick Armstrong

Putin phone-in. On Saturday, Putin gave another marathon phone-in session (Eng) (Russ). As befits the Prime Minister’s job, everything was domestic (except for a bit about the WTO and the Jackson-Vanik amendment). The discussion was very detailed and, as ever, many questions were of the nature “My roof leaks, can you fix it?” My favourite bit was the presenter’s observation: “We have a lot of messages which quote the local authorities as saying: ‘We hear that Putin has promised it to you, so go and ask Putin’”. To which Putin replied: “Well, if you have such facts, let me know while we are on the air and we will sort out [мы разберемся] the people who give such answers.” Still a long way to go. And, once again he refused to give any indication of future plans. Here is his reason: “The biggest mistake would be to adjust our current work based on the interests of future election campaigns… When you start thinking about your ratings or about what you should do in the interests of future election campaigns, you will immediately feel tied to that and unable to make decisions some of which may be unpleasant but important for the economy and ultimately for the people.” Neither he nor Medvedev (nor Mr X) will ever say anything different before the event.

RUSSIAN FEDERATION WEEKLY SITREP

by Patrick Armstrong

Russia and Europe. Readers will know that since the Ossetia war I have been predicting a change in European attitudes towards Russia. My argument is that many there have realised what a bill of goods they were sold about Saakashvili, Georgia and Russia (to say nothing about the gas supply problem) and will therefore be re-considering their ideas about Russia’s alleged hostility. Some more indications: Medvedev seems to have had a fruitful visit to France and I would expect similar results when he visits Italy today. Furthermore, it appears that his ideas on a new security treaty (Russ, Eng) are at least being listened to rather than dismissed as they first were. And, interestingly enough, Berlusconi just visited Belarus signalling the end of the shunning of “Europe’s last dictator”.

NATO expansion. Russians have been saying NATO promised not to expand. Are they right? Apparently.

Iran. Russia’s representative on the IAEA voted with Western countries to criticise Tehran for its nuclear program. Ahmadinejad was not best pleased. So, Bushehr delayed, no SS-300s and now this.

MYTHS ABOUT THE U.S.-RUSSIAN RESET'S FAILURE

COMMENTARY

 by Gordon Hahn

Many Western analysts and policy makers continue to insist that the Barack Obama administration's 'reset' efforts in U.S. relations with Russia are doomed to insignificance or outright failure.  To be sure, U.S. and Western interests diverge from Moscow's on several key issues, but at the same time policies are under review in both Washington and Moscow.  On the most important issue - Iran's nuclear weapons development program - Moscow has sought to protect its economic interests in Teheran by limiting the harshness of UN sanctions and offering a way out of the conflict by proposing the shipment of spent nuclear fuel so that Iran cannot enrich it for weaponization.  Iran's rejection of the plan puts Moscow in a corner, and a moment of truth is coming for the Kremlin in which it will have to make the Hobson's choice between its relationship with an unreliable and internationally irresponsible Teheran and an eternally distrusted West.  This issue will ultimately make or break the reset. 

GETTING RUSSIA WRONG

COMMENTARY

 by Gordon Hahn

In a recent Jamestown Foundation article covering Russian-European summit and energy issues and Russian domestic politics, Pavel Baev made several erroneous assertions consistent with that institution’s biases about Russian. 

Baev’s comments on Russia’s ruling Medvedev-Putin ‘tandem’ are far off the mark. “Medvedev is trying to connect with the loose but powerful idea of "change" and argues that Russia cannot continue prospering as a petro-state, but Putin counters with the affirmative ‘Yes, we can’,” asserts the author.  He adds that Putin’s speech at the United Russia party congress elaborated “Russian conservatism” in opposition to Medvedev’s liberalism, which nevertheless is treated by Baev as nothing more than verbiage.  

MEDVEDEV'S GRADUAL THAW CONTINUES

COMMENTARY

 by Gordon Hahn

Even before the inauguration of Dmitrii Medvedev as Russias president I broached the idea of a likely thaw under the somewhat new administration, basing that view on both historical precedents and contemporary imperatives (Gordon M. Hahn, “Is A Russian Thaw Coming?,” Russia: Other Points of View, April 18, 2008).  Six weeks later, I reported some of the recent new signs of a coming and indeed already real if crawling thaw (Gordon M. Hahn, “More Signs of a Possible Thaw Under Medvedev,” Russia: Other Points of View, June 2, 2008).  A month later, I wrote that there would be a political thaw under Medvedev barring any unexpected upheavals: “Medvedev is on a leash.  If he learns to stay on the sidewalk and not wander into the traffic, Putin will gradually lengthen and very gradually remove that leash, fade into the premiership and perhaps leave it in a second Medvedev term.  In lieu of a major jihadist attack, an assassination, or an overly aggressive Western Russia policy, an economic and political thaw will likely develop at the pace with which Medvedev takes control.  Such a thaw will be very gradual – like watching an iceberg melt – but it will melt.” (Gordon M. Hahn, “The Politics of Unleashing,” Russia Profile, July 1, 2008).

Russia's Economic Crisis and U.S.-Russia Relations: Troubled Times Ahead

ARTICLE CRITIQUE

Response to Heritage Foundation Executive Summary "Russia's Economic Crisis and U.S.-Russia Relations: Troubled Times Ahead" by Ariel Cohen and Richard Ericson

by Gordon Hahn

The article reviewed below is an executive summary of a set of proposals put forward by the Heritage Foundation’s Ariel Cohen and Richard E. Ericson. Although there are some commendable points made by the authors, it suffers from the usual Washington consensus bias that sees Russia’s role in international affairs as one that should serve primarily American and Western interests, regardless of Russia’s national and security interests.  No substantial concessions are made to Moscow.  Belated and therefore insubstantial concessions are made only to have their effect negated by putting new roadblocks in Moscow’s efforts to integrate into the global and Western economy.  The paper ignores NATO expansion – the pivotal issue impacting the relationship – and proposes to continue policies that dismantle and deny Russia a small sphere of influence in countries directly on its borders – while the U.S. reserves the right to add those same countries to its global sphere of ‘vital interests.’ 

To access the full analysis, please click here Download Heritage_Foundation_Cohen_Ericso_Nov_09

WORKING WITH RUSSIA TO PREVENT EURASIAN COLLAPSE

REPRINTS

by Andrey Tsygankov

RFERL, Oct 29, 2009 

The Eurasian region continues to disintegrate, and neither Russia nor the West has been able to arrest the destabilizing dynamics.

Evidence of rising instability throughout the region include the August 2008 Russia-Georgia war, renewed terrorist attacks in the North Caucasus, the persistent failure of Western forces to stabilize Afghanistan, the inability of Central Asian rulers to reign in local clans and drug lords, and the paralysis of legitimately elected bodies of power in Ukraine and Moldova.

Violence is gradually spreading, waiting for an opportunity to erupt into a large-scale conflict. Transregional transportation routes may soon be choked due to Russia's conflicts with Ukraine, Georgia, and Turkmenistan.

The West's attempts to secure and stabilize Eurasia after the end of the Cold War must be recognized as a failure. In the mid-1990s, U.S. geostrategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski recommended that the United States pursue a policy of replacing Russia as the referee and protector of the newly established non-Russian states in the region. After initial hesitation, the United States and other Western states followed this advice.

Yet Eurasia has not become stable or peaceful and continues to disintegrate. The bureaucrats in Washington and Brussels have failed to understand that they lack the resources, the will, and the experience to stabilize the complex region. Today -- after the Iraq war and the global financial crisis -- the United States is beginning to recognize its overextension, but it is not at all clear if Washington and Brussels are prepared to act differently in Eurasia.

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