E-Notes

A U.S. Policy for Russia

by Alvin Z. Rubinstein

April 25, 2001

Alvin Z. Rubinstein is a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute; co-chairman of FPRI’s InterUniversity Study Group on Russia, Europe, and the United States; and Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

For related FPRI E-Notes, see “From Russia Without Love,” by Alexander M. Haig, Jr. and Harvey Sicherman (March 2001), and “Nuclear Smuggling from the Former Soviet Union: Threats and Responses,” by Rensselaer Lee.

To the administration of George W. Bush falls the responsibility for fashioning a coherent, long-term policy toward Russia. When the Cold War ended in 1990 and the former Soviet Union unexpectedly imploded in December 1991, the first Bush administration demonstrated statecraft at its best, in guiding the U.S.-Soviet relations peacefully through that critical period. Perhaps at no time during the global rivalry had the uncertainty and danger been greater. Dealing diplomatically with one leadership that was in the process of relinquishing power (Gorbachev’s) and with another that was seizing the reins of a humbled superpower in the throes of major regime change and the loss of 25 percent of its territory and 40 percent of its population (Yeltsin’s) required judgment, patience, and a steady course. It was George Bush’s finest hour.

His successor, for a combination of strategically short-sighted reasons, downgraded the Russian issue. He failed to provide sustained attention or effectively target assistance to a Russia seeking a democratic and Western-oriented path. Instead of cultivating a cooperative relationship on the basis of a few shared common security interests, the Clinton administration substituted atmospherics for policy, relying on ego-enhancing media events and official visits, and an uncritical courtship of President Boris Yeltsin. But public displays of camaraderie cannot replace sound agreements. At the end of the Clinton era, U.S.- Russian relations were in worse condition than at any time since the early 1980s.

Any authoritative assessment of the present administration’s attitude toward Russia must await publication of the strategic assessment being prepared by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and due to be completed this summer. However, on the basis of what we do know about the personnel at the heart of the effort, the administration of George W. Bush will be less likely to cater to Russian pretensions of still being a major Great Power; less sympathetic to its economic needs and requests; less apt to indulge in hollow expressions of comprehensive cooperation; less tolerant of Russia’s freebooting arms sales to rogue regimes; and less sympathetic with its snail-like pace of movement toward democratization and the establishment of a market-oriented economy. The administration is impatient with Russia’s dilatory approach to crucial domestic problems from public health to Chechnya, and annoyed with President Vladimir Putin’s grandstanding tours abroad in transparent efforts to stoke anti-American sentiment and disrupt the NATO alliance by wooing Germany and France. Moreover, Putin’s centralization of power without signs of an agenda for reforming society or the economy is worrisome. In brief, the administration’s propensity is toward deep distrust of Russian declarations and intentions.

Before venturing to offer recommendations for the consideration of the Bush administration, it may be appropriate to make clear four assumptions that underlie my own overall assessment and determine the consequent suggested approach.

First, Russia is not an enemy; it may not be a friend, but there is nothing inevitable about its becoming a global adversary as it was in the recent past. Putin’s Russia is not bent on restoring the empire, much less seeking domination over the Eurasian heartland. It lacks the capability, the resources, and the ideological impetus. Actually, empires are obsolete, economically as well as politically. A severely wounded civilization and power still in decline, Russia must look inward to its own parlous condition or face further retrogression. Whatever its perception of itself and its role in the world, in this era of globalization and transparency, its relative backwardness is apparent to all. If China took 30 years to shed the tragic Maoist legacy, Russia will require far longer to overcome the deformations of the Soviet era. During his eight years as Russia’s first president, Yeltsin failed to set Russia on the road to essential reforms.

Second, neither in Europe nor in the Far East does Russia threaten America’s allies or national interests. In Europe, where the U.S. national interest is basically the same today as it was at the beginning of the 20th century, namely, to ensure that no one power dominates the European continent, the American position is stronger militarily than ever before. But Clinton’s restless activism and domestically driven acceleration of NATO’s timetable for enlargement prompted Russia to question American’s benign hegemonial ambitions. As a result, the European security environment has been unnecessarily repolarized Specifically, Russia fears a second tranche— a further expansion that would bring the Baltic States into NATO. This could prove especially tension-generating because of Bush’s stated determination to push a missile defense program that Russia believes could jeopardize its nuclear deterrent.

There should be no mistaking the position of the Russian military — politically and strategically. Certainly, expansion has had chilling effects on Russian-American relations, and reopened a psychological and political divide that will not easily or soon be bridged. In light of Yeltsin’s experience with the Clinton administration, Putin most likely assumes the United States is hostile to Russia’s concerns and interests. If so, he may be expected, given his weak position, to engage in wide-ranging diplomatic maneuvering and adept use of the limited military, political, and economic instruments at his disposal to safeguard and advance Russian foreign policy interests. It would be strategically unwise were the United States to do nothing to try to reverse Russia’s road to alienation.

Third, looking ahead to the next decade, coalition warfare will be the mode of conflict of choice in campaigns against other nation-states, as it was, in NATO’s war against Serbia in the spring of 1999, and in struggles against terrorism. Coalitions are essential for democracies in this age of consensual policymaking to deter and defeat the designs of rogue states and movements. An inclusive strategy should be developed wherever possible. But this requires making judgments about priorities. In thinking about Russia it is important we consider not just what Russia may do but also what it may not do. For example, as a member of the United Nations Security Council, Russia can exercise its veto power to stymie a wide range of U.S.-backed measures that— for diplomatic reasons — requires a UN imprimatur. Just as there would have been no Gulf War to undo Iraq’s aggression against Kuwait had the Soviet Union not cooperated with the United States, so in the attempt to arrest the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, Russia’s assistance would be invaluable.

My final assumption is that Russia is an integral part of Christendom. For most of the past 300 years Russian elites have been culturally Western-oriented. In an age of growing ethnic, religious, and cultural differentiation, the sense is pervasive that Russia aspires to be accepted as part of Europe. Russia’s society was unleavened by religious reformations and free-wheeling capitalistic influences, which played so central a role in transforming the rest of Europe. But its culture— music, literature, architecture, painting, dance— has been influenced by European currents; in turn, the streams of Russian creativity and thought have touched every part of Europe and America. From 1918 to 1991, the communist epoch separated Russia from the rest of Christendom. But this is the past, and not a necessary prologue to the future. It is in the U.S. national interest that Russia and America resume the grand reconciliation that was started in the late Reagan era.

President Bush has made a strong commitment to strengthen U.S. security and defense capability. His key advisers are experienced professionals. A first recommendation would be for them to explore a development that started at the end of the first Bush administration but was only erratically continued under Clinton— the close, working relationship with the Russian military, particularly on nuclear issues. Fred C. Ikle, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy in the Reagan administration, had it right when he told Congress not to be diverted from strengthening ties with Russia on this issue: “There is only so much time in high level meetings to cover multiple agendas. The nuclear issues that require Russian action are so important, so overwhelming, that we must focus all our leverage and influence in Moscow, with all the carrots and sticks that we command for the continuing negotiation with Russian authorities.” What he said in 1991 is even more urgent in 2001.

Notwithstanding straitened circumstances and a diminished conventional weapons capability, Russia remains a nuclear superpower, second only to the United States; and only the United States is able to negotiate effectively with Russia on a range of critical nuclear and nuclear-related issues: to help ensure a reliable command and control system, decrease the vulnerability to theft of nuclear stockpiles, enhance the safety of nuclear facilities and weapons grade material, improve verification procedures, curb the diffusion of nuclear weapons-related technologies and equipment, and so on. In any effort to forestall the emergence of new nuclear-capable states, Russian collaboration is essential.

The most imaginative piece of legislation charting U.S.-Russian military cooperation remains the Nunn-Lugar Act, formally known as the Cooperative Threat Reduction Act, passed in late 1991. It focused on the downsizing of nuclear weapons stockpiles, with extensive verification procedures to ensure that the lethal radioactive cores were rendered inert and buried. Congress should adequately fund and expand its operation. The money we spend to help the Russians in this effort enhances our own security.

Second, our government needs to be clear about its aims in Europe, to distinguish what is essential for our security from what is merely desirable. No power challenges U.S. preeminence in Europe, our allies are at peace and secure, and the addition of new members to NATO would unnecessarily increase the defense burden without enhancing strategic stability. Indeed, further enlargement of the alliance to include the Baltic States will surely worsen relations with Russia, very likely aggravate tensions to a point of no return on the road to repolarizing Europe, and induce Putin to upgrade his nuclear and missile forces and forge stronger links to China. And, as so often happened in Russia’s history, the preoccupation with security would quell whatever prospects exist for a more open and reform-minded leadership.

Nothing prevents the European Community (EC) from admitting Estonia, Latvia, and Estonia, and whomever else it wishes. But keep NATO separate. As it is, NATO’s bureaucracy is bloated, preoccupied with conferences, perks, and reports, and less with security, given the absence of serious threats to the alliance. Too much can be made of its “out-of-area” activities in the Balkans, which hardly justify any further enlargement at this time.

Third, the U.S. policy of containing Russia in the Far East should be modified. Relative to all the other regional actors in Asia, Russia is weaker than it has been since the early years of the 20th century. Angered by Washington’s policy of trying to marginalize it to the extent possible, Moscow seeks ties with whomever it can. Not surprisingly in its courtship of China, it has emulated the American policy of commercialism: whereas America’s coin of the realm are supercomputers, the latest Boeing aircraft laden with advanced electronic equipment, and other types of dual-use technology and equipment, Russia’s is modern weaponry, virtually anything in its arsenal. Both countries seem hell-bent on maximizing exports, seemingly without regard for the strategic consequences. With a steeply rising deficit in its balance of trade with China— now in the vicinity of $100 billion a year— the United States is becoming more the supplicant than the prudent lender at the Chinese money table. On the Korean Peninsula, the U.S. policy of denying Russia any role in efforts to foster stability and security is short-sighted.

Russian analysts know that they are building up a more powerful China with which they will have to contend in the future, but they blame the United States for their sense of beleaguerment. In addition to NATO enlargement, NATO’s use of force against Serbia, and U.S. moves to authorize construction of a national missile defense and possibly scrap the ABM treaty, they cite NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) activities in Transcaucasia and Central Asia. PfP’s intrusiveness in the form of military exercises held with Kazakh, Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Georgian forces and its encouragement to these countries to seek formal security ties with NATO are viewed as part of a general U.S. strategy of gaining control of oil and natural gas pipelines and reserves in the region. This “New Great Game,” the meshing of anti-Russian containment with commercialism in the quest for spheres of influence all along Russia’s vulnerable southern periphery, worries Moscow. Should China prove to be the greater long term challenge to significant U.S. national interests in Asia, then the current exclusionary policy toward Russia is ill-suited for the strategic environment of the foreseeable future.

Fourth, Some improvements in the U.S.-Russian relationship in any or all of the three issue areas noted above could have a spillover effect elsewhere. For example, Russia could be a help in the fight against drug trafficking, the smuggling of illegals, and crime syndicates whose operations, which are spread across Central Eurasia and Russia, have their sights set primarily on Eastern and Western Europe as their lucrative targets, not Russia.

In the Middle East, Russia sells arms and technology to Iraq and Iran, much to America’s ire. But Moscow’s principal aim is market share and hard currency earnings, not strategic advantage or strategic denial, as it was in the Cold War era. Improved U.S.-Russian relations, coupled with some generous financial packages, could bring changes in Russian policy, which could be reassuring to the Bush administration.

Combating terrorism and militant Islam are two broad objectives the United States and Russia share. Of course, Russia’s behavior in its autonomous republic of Chechnya is a problem for human rights advocates, but the two countries will have to agree to disagree and move on to higher priority concerns, as was done during the Cold War. Moreover, in time, we may find connections between the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in Aden, the bombing several years ago of the U.S. Army barracks in Saudi Arabia, and the insurgency in Chechnya. Russia is interested in stability in Transcaucasia and Central Asia, and in recognition of its national interest there. Like the United States, Russia is trying to assert influence and affect regional developments, not impose a new imperium. Prudence dictates that their competition be disciplined by their broader shared strategic objectives.

In the U.N. Security Council, Russia is a necessary partner in promoting long overdue change in the financing and purposes of peacekeeping forces, in managing multilateral responses to humanitarian catastrophes, and in refocusing U.N. priorities away from mushrooming welfarism to unaddressed security challenges— military, energy, environmental, and technological.

Finally, antipathy toward Russia is deeply rooted in the United States. Russia may be the only country without a lobby among its former countrymen now living in the United States. My final recommendation would be to direct attention to a field where Russia can help the United States: education. Whatever its many faults, the former Soviet Union did turn out well-trained students in mathematics and the sciences. The shortages in these subjects in U.S. high schools is near crisis proportions. Request Moscow’s assistance in recruiting Russian teachers to work in the United States for two or three years. The federal government could fund a program involving one thousand or more trained Russian high school teachers, commencing with a two-month intensive course in English and familiarity with the United States. After that, teams of teachers would be assigned to target schools in as many states as expressed interest and a willingness to share the cost with the federal government. Benefits should accrue to all parties.

For our part, in the event that Putin delivers on his promise to privatize land and institute a land reform program, the United States government could offer to help finance teams of agricultural specialists to work with Russian farmers in modernizing the way they produce, package, and market their crops.

The Russia that once was need not predestine the Russia to come. A wise U.S. foreign policy can go a good way toward determining the kind of Russia we deal with in the years ahead.

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