http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1016/42/368318.htm
Bismarck in the Kremlin.
17 June 2008By Alexander Golts
Foreign diplomats and analysts have spent a lot of time scrutinizing
President Dmitry Medvedev's comments on Russia's foreign policy. They all want
to know the answer to the most important question on their minds: Will Medvedev
continue the exaggerated and ridiculous "Cold War" with the West that Prime
Minister Vladimir Putin so skillfully orchestrated when he was president?
Medvedev inherited a rather convoluted foreign policy legacy from his
predecessor. A key element of this legacy was codified in Putin's Munich speech
in February 2007, in which he concluded that the heightened U.S.-Soviet
standoff during the 1980s had actually been one of the more stable periods in
East-West relations. Putin made it clear in Munich that he sought to return
U.S.-Russian relations to the "stability" of the '80s. He put many of the old,
dusty Cold War issues back on the negotiating table -- missile defense, the
balance of conventional arms in Europe and strategic nuclear forces -- while
repeatedly accusing the United States and NATO countries of attempting to
achieve military superiority over Russia.
Medvedev has two clear options for dealing with Putin's foreign policy
legacy -- either continue to play this risky game of provoking confrontation or
adopt a more conciliatory approach.
Medvedev's most important foreign policy statement so far was his call
for an all-European summit to sign a legally binding pact on European security,
which he made in his Berlin speech on June 5. In formulating his security
model, Medvedev said the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, a multilateral agreement
condemning war as an instrument of national policy, "has a better hope of
success" in today's world.
It is obvious that the current system of international security was
created during an era of Cold War confrontation and is based on the concept of
mutual deterrence of two superpowers. Putin was able to exploit that skillfully
to his own advantage. During his two presidential terms, Putin effectively
turned the clock back to the 1980s. To add a little sizzle to his Cold War
fire, Putin has shown a fondness for quoting 19th-century German leader Otto
von Bismarck, including, most recently, "It's more important to assess a
country's military potential than its intentions." Using this reasoning, in any
conflict with the West -- from the poisoning of former Federal Security Service
agent Alexander Litvinenko to Russia's provocative actions against Georgia and
its harsh crackdown on the Dissenters' Marches -- the Kremlin could always
portray Russia as a besieged fortress.
Like his predecessor, Medvedev is trying to dissuade NATO from expanding
into the former Soviet republics by speaking about the serious consequences of
this policy. In his Berlin speech, Medvedev said that if NATO continues its
expansion, he was "convinced that our relations with the alliance will be
undermined and radically spoiled for a long time to come. There will be no
confrontation, of course, but the price will be high. That will inflict very
serious damage."
But Medvedev does not plan to raise the stakes too high. Whereas Putin
threatened to target missiles at Ukraine should that country join NATO,
Medvedev limited himself to suggesting that Russia's cooperation with the
alliance on operations in Afghanistan could suffer. Nonetheless, at a recent
meeting of the Russia-NATO Council, both sides announced their intention to
continue working on an agreement for using Russian military transport airlifts
in joint operations.
Medvedev's proposed European security pact could evolve in two different
directions. If Medvedev does not continue Putin's charade about NATO's supposed
military threat to Russia, the pact could diffuse the confrontation. His
21st-century version of Kellogg-Briand would necessarily mean that the issues
that have until now been pillars of the Kremlin's foreign policy -- namely,
missile defense and NATO expansion -- will become less important.
But Medvedev's foreign policy could easily take a completely different
direction. One indication of this was his appeal for all European states to
participate in his new European-security pact as individual nations without
being tied to any particular bloc (that is, NATO) or ideological motive.
Medvedev and his team have not decided on their foreign policy strategy.
But this decision is not completely his to make, of course. The country's
foreign policy will ultimately be determined by the faction that is able to
gain the upper hand in the battle for power between the White House and the
Kremlin.
Alexander Golts is deputy editor of the online newspaper Yezhednevny
Zhurnal.
