Washington Post
August 14, 2001
What to Do With the New Russia
By Henry Kissinger
The writer, a former secretary of state, is president of Kissinger
Associates, an international consulting firm.
In its sixth month in office, the Bush administration stands on the
threshold
of a new era of post-Cold War international relations. Despite
occasional
tactical clumsiness, it has grasped the unique opportunity that, for the
first time since World War II, no major nation is in a position to
challenge
the United States; and, more important, that every major nation has more
to
gain from cooperating with the United States than from confronting it.
A good example is the American relationship with post-Communist Russia,
which
has the potential to become as symbolic of the new era as the opening to
China was after 1972. President Vladimir Putin's unexpected agreement to
discuss both offensive levels of nuclear weapons and modifications of
existing missile defense arrangements shows that the first leader of a
genuinely non-Communist Russia is coming to grips with the emerging
international realities.
Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin had made their careers in the
life-and-death struggles that led to their positions on the Politburo.
They
were used to the Soviet Union as a superpower equal in reach -- at least
in
its own perception -- to the United States. Instinctively believing that
Russia's turmoil was but a brief interruption before resumption of its
mission, they oscillated between posing as a superpower side by side
with the
American president and fitful stabs at traditional Soviet policies based
on
opposition to the United States in regions such as the Middle East and
the
Balkans.
By contrast, Putin's career was made in the bureaucracy of the KGB and
later
as the deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. The former position placed a
premium
on analysis of the international situation; the latter brought Putin
face to
face with the dilemmas of post-Soviet reconstruction. Like his
predecessors,
he wants to restore Russia's role, but unlike them he understands this
is a
long-term process.
In terms of Russian history, Putin is best understood as comparable to
Prince
Alexander Gorchakov, who conducted Russian foreign policy for 25 years
after
the Russian debacle in the Crimean War in 1856. Patient, conciliatory
policies and avoiding crises allowed Gorchakov to restore an isolated
and
gravely weakened country to a leading international position.
Thus Putin, in his first policy statements as premier in 1999 and later
as
president in 2000, appealed to Russian pride by putting forward the
restoration of Russian greatness as a national objective. But he showed
his
understanding of the limited means available by admitting that even a
heady
annual growth of 8 percent for 15 years would allow Russia to reach only
the
per capita income of present-day Portugal.
Putin's priorities appear to be the recovery of the Russian economy; the
restoration of Russia as a great power, preferably by cooperation with
the
United States but, if necessary, by building countervailing power
centers;
combating Islamic fundamentalism; establishing a new security
relationship
toward Europe, especially with respect to NATO expansion to the Baltic
states; and solving the missile defense issue.
These priorities explain why Putin has not pushed this agreement on
missile
defense to the point of confrontation. A clash with the United States
would
drain Russian resources and encourage a return to postwar patterns.
Cooperation would symbolize a new era and perhaps bring some
technological
progress in shared anti-missile technology. And the price would be
tolerable:
The size of the Russian nuclear and missile arsenal will prevent any
missile
defense foreseeable for the next quarter-century to threaten Russia's
ultimate retaliatory capability.
On the political plane, the challenge of Islamic fundamentalism is
probably
the dominant Russian concern. Russia's leaders perceive Afghanistan's
Taliban
and to a lesser extent Iran and Pakistan as threats to the newly
independent
states of Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan,
formerly Soviet republics. Furthermore, Moscow fears that militant
ideologies
could stimulate irredentism in Russia's southern Muslim provinces.
America
has its own concerns about the spread of fundamentalism toward Saudi
Arabia,
Pakistan and into the Middle East. An effort should be made to achieve
concurrent or at least compatible policies with Russia on the Middle
East,
including Central Asia, Afghanistan, Iran and, at least as far as Russia
is
concerned, the Balkans.
During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the United States were
convinced that a gain in influence by either would amount to a weakening
of
the global position of the other. The basic strategy of each side was to
reduce the influence of the other. Under post-Cold War conditions,
neither
side can make lasting gains at the expense of the other in the Middle
East.
Russia may believe it is foreclosing an American option by tolerating
assistance to Iran in the nuclear and missile fields. Some American
policy-makers may perceive comparable opportunities in other regions of
the
Middle East. But in the end, the test of either country's policy will
not be
whether one or the other has greater influence in Tehran but whether the
Tehran regime alters its policies and conduct. Unless such a change
occurs,
both Russia and America are under threat.
There are, however, clear limits beyond which neither country may be
able to
go. America cannot, in the name of opposition to Islamic fundamentalism,
acquiesce in Russia's methods for suppressing the upheavals in Chechnya.
Nor
can America be indifferent should Islamic fundamentalism become a
pretext to
force the newly independent states of Central Asia back under Russian
strategic domination. The safety of Israel remains a fundamental
American
goal. Russia has not in the past displayed a similar concern -- though
this
attitude may be changing on the part of some Russian leaders who are
beginning to view Israel as a strategic counterweight to Islamic
fundamentalism. Finally, it is possible that the competition for access
to
oil and the routes for its delivery will prove a major obstacle to
policy
coordination. In the end, the possibilities of Russo-American
cooperation
regarding Islamic fundamentalism depend on the ability to carve out a
passage
between Cold War tendencies and reigniting a new competition for
dominance.
The most immediate challenge to Russo-American relations is NATO
expansion,
especially to the Baltic states, which is on the agenda for 2002. The
Soviet
subjugation of these states in 1940 was never recognized by the United
States. And surely no group of nations is more deserving of protection
by the
Western democracies than these small countries incapable of posing a
threat
to any neighbor.
At the same time, for Russia, the advance of NATO to within 40 miles of
St.
Petersburg, into countries considered by it until the last decade as
part of
the Soviet Union, is bound to be disquieting no matter what reassurances
are
given. Baltic membership in NATO would produce a strong Russian
reaction, if
only to maintain the Putin government's domestic standing. On the other
hand,
it is morally and politically impossible to ignore or postpone the
appeals of
the Baltic democracies -- especially in view of the support given to
their
entry into NATO by President Bush in his recent Warsaw speech. Three
options
present themselves:
(1) To face down Russia by admitting all the Baltic states with some
security
assurances such as agreeing not to station NATO forces on Baltic
territory
(selective membership for some but not all Baltic states would solve
nothing;
it raises all of the psychological and political problems and creates a
festering sore).
(2) If the European Union were serious about strengthening its defenses
and
if it were prepared to assign a meaningful mission to the projected
European
force, a solution might be accelerated membership of the Baltic states
in the
European Union, coupled with a security guarantee by both the European
Union
and the United States but without the formal machinery of the NATO
military
structure.
(3) Treating eligibility for NATO not so much as a security issue as a
recognition of political and economic evolution. On this basis, any
country
meeting stated criteria could be declared eligible, including Russia
some
years after the Baltics, when its domestic evolution has progressed
further.
This has been hinted at by Putin and urged explicitly by various of his
advisers.
It is a seductive proposition, but before embarking on this road,
careful
thought must be given to its implications.
Russian membership in NATO would end the guarantee against Russian
intervention most desired by countries formerly under Soviet occupation,
because NATO provides no guarantee against attacks from other members of
the
alliance. Indeed, it would put an end to NATO as heretofore conceived.
For an
alliance protects a specific territory; once Russia joins, the alliance
will
be either a general collective security system or an alliance of North
Atlantic nations against China -- a step with grave long-range
implications.
It is highly desirable for Russia's relations with NATO to improve to a
point
that the question of security disappears -- much as happened between
Germany
and France after World War II. But to formalize such an outcome to
facilitate
Baltic membership in NATO is both premature and ironic.
Russia should be welcomed immediately into a North Atlantic political
system,
but membership in the military arrangements should be deferred. This
poses
the following challenges:
• Russo-American relations need to be lifted from the psychological to
the
political level; they cannot be made to depend on the personal relations
of
leaders. This requires concreteness of objective and substance. With
respect
to missile defense, it is unlikely that Russia will give us carte
blanche, as
President Putin has made clear in his conversations with Defense
Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld; discussions will have to revolve around some specific
scheme
or schemes; some form of understanding that has some binding quality has
to
evolve -- though I agree with the administration that the upcoming
discussion
should not give Russia a veto and that some time limit must be
established.
• In the political field, the necessities of the present must be
related to
hopes for the future. This applies especially to America's NATO
relationship,
which is our only institutional link to Europe. But it applies as well
to
America's relations with China, Japan and Israel.
• By the same token, Russia will seek to maintain its influence in
regions of
geopolitical and historical importance to the Russian state and as a
hedge
should the effort to create a new basis for Russo-American relations
flounder
-- as is seen in its recent friendship treaties with China and North
Korea.
• All this imposes a new need for imagination in American foreign
policy.
With a wise foreign policy, America for the foreseeable future should be
in a
position to create incentives that cause both Russia and China to stand
to
gain more from cooperative relations with the United States than from
confrontation with it.
• The frozen relationships of the Cold War no longer fit a world in
which
there are no principal adversaries and in which the very distinction
between
friends and adversaries is in transition in many regions. In such
circumstances, the United States needs to design a diplomacy that
prevents
threats to fundamental American interests and values without designating
a
specific adversary in advance, and above all by a policy based on the
widest
possible international consensus on positive goals.
Serbian News Network - SNN
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