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| Author: | Michael Moran, Executive Editor, CFR.org |
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October 28, 2007
Star-Ledger
Among the least controversial aspects of the Bush administration’s controversial 2002 National Security Strategy - the so-called “pre-emptive war doctrine” that justified the Iraq invasion - was this line: “Having moved from confrontation to cooperation as the hallmark of our relationship with Russia, the dividends are evident: an end to the balance of terror that divided us; an historic reduction in the nuclear arsenals on both sides; and cooperation in areas such as counterterrorism and missile defense that until recently were inconceivable.”
The first application of Bush’s national security strategy in Iraq remains at the center of the American foreign policy debate these days; the ripple effects radiating from it still bear close examination. Iran, of course, has been empowered by the elimination of its two deadliest enemies (Saddam Hussein and the Taliban), and now holds more influence than ever through Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, with the Shi’as now dominating the government in Iraq, and in the wider Mideast for giving voice to the politically incorrect dream of the “Arab street” - the destruction of Israel.
China, too, has reason to cheer, since Iraq’s demands on the attentions of America’s military, intelligence and political institutions created a convenient and vital calm in East Asia that has allowed its powerhouse economy to do just what’s necessary to take the next steps on the road to being a superpower. North Korea used its time well, too, testing a nuclear weapon. Even the people who started all this, al Qaeda and the Taliban, flushed from their dusty base camp in Afghanistan, now appear on the verge of challenging established powers for control of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
The last thing the United States needs right now, one might reasonably argue, is another major power bent on opposition to America. And yet that may be exactly what is happening in a cold and familiar capital: Moscow. Since December 2005, when Russian muscle-flexing in a dispute with Ukraine showed the European Union how vulnerable its natural gas supplies had become, Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no bones about how he deeply resents the status quo he inherited from Boris Yeltsin when he took power on the eve of the millennium. Earlier that year, he told his nation in a televised address that “the demise of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century.”
In part, the statement speaks to a widely held belief among citizens of the Russian Federation that the millions of ethnic Russians living outside the state’s current borders in former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Georgia and the Baltic states, have been marooned and cut off from the mother culture. Yet it also reflects something deeper and more troublesome for the United States: A determination, particularly on the part of men like Putin, a former KGB agent, to avenge what they view as the shabby treatment of Russia by the West when Moscow was down at the heels in the 1990s.
This is not just rhetoric. Repeatedly in the past two years, Putin has moved to reassert the power of the state in domestic affairs, and the power of Moscow in the wider world. Domestically, Putin sharply curtailed civil liberties, jailed opposition figures, jammed through electoral laws that make opposition parties unlikely to win seats in parliament, shut down the independent media that blossomed briefly in the 1990s. A number of journalists and dissident figures were killed whose common denominator were a Russian passport and open criticism of the Kremlin.
Putin, whose “soul” George W. Bush famously claimed to gain access to during their first meeting in 2001, approved significant cooperation with the United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, including increased arms shipments to Washington’s proxy in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance, and an agreement not to object to temporary American air operations in the Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. But since 2002 - roughly since the concept of “pre-emptive war” became official American policy - whatever President Bush saw when he looked into Putin’s eyes apparently has disappeared.
Russia has stepped up domestic interference in its neighbors’ affairs, particularly in Ukraine and Georgia, countries that have hinted they might want to join the European Union or even NATO. Putin shocked some when he publicly backed the pro-Moscow candidate in Ukraine’s elections in December 2004. But, little noticed in the West, Russia’s policy had changed. Gleb Pavlovsky, a close adviser to Putin, told reporters in early 2005 Russia had the right to get deeply involved in its neighbors’ internal politics. “Any country (that would) promote the doctrine of Russia’s rollback will certainly create a conflict in the relations with this country,” he said.
Putin has turned those words into deeds outside the former Soviet states, too. Earlier this year, Putin announced his intention to abrogate the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty signed by Mikhail Gorbachev and George H.W. Bush in 1990. This summer, Russia resumed long-range nuclear bomber patrols of a kind not seen since the Cold War, sending its bomber fleet aloft regularly to fly toward targets in Asia, Europe and the Arctic.
Most recently,Russia has threatened to pull out of the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaty if the United States goes ahead with plans to base a missile-defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic. The Bush administration says the missile system is meant to prevent a rogue missile from, say, Iran or another smaller actor from striking American bases or allies in Europe. Such a shield, American military experts assert, is completely ineffective against the enormous nuclear missile forces still maintained by Russia. Putin won’t have it, however, and last week, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates raised the idea of delaying the missile shield until there is concrete evidence Iran has missiles capable of threatening Europe.
While Putin’s KGB past always has raised eyebrows in American foreign policy circles, some analysts believe it would be fair to ask whether a combination of arrogance and negligence on the part of American policymakers has made this backlash worse. In the latest issue of the journal Foreign Affairs, Dmitri K. Simes, head of the Nixon Center, writes: “Washington’s crucial error lay in its propensity to treat post-Soviet Russia as a defeated enemy.” From the Russian point of view, says Simes and a host of other Russia specialists, the bloodless “victory” Americans like to crow about in the Cold War was actually a joint affair, with Gorbachev and Yeltsin as Reagan and Bush’s willing dance partners. Actions by the West during the 1990s, especially the decision to allow former Warsaw Pact states of Central and Eastern Europe to join NATO, convinced many Russians that America remained an enemy.
Now, Russia’s economy is among the world’s fastest growing, expanding at a 7 percent rate last year as high oil prices turn Russia’s enormous stores of oil and natural gas into a virtual ATM machine. “A stronger Russia now regrets such conciliatory policies because they have left the country feeling encircled,” writes Russia analyst Ivan Eland. A Telegraph of London editorial puts it more plainly: “Now that Russia can not only pay its bills but also invest heavily abroad, and is able to use its energy reserves to blackmail its neighbours, we are paying the price for the coolness” of the 1990s.
In The Closing of the American Border, Edward Alden goes behind the scenes to tell the story of the Bush administration’s struggle to balance security and openness in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
In Termites in the Trading System, Jagdish Bhagwati reveals how the rapid spread of preferential trade agreements endangers the world trading system.
America Between the Wars explores how the decisions and debates of the years between the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Twin Towers shaped the events, arguments, and politics of the world we live in today.
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