More Than a ‘Reset’ Needed in U.S.-Russia Policy
President Obama can be credited for having been the first American leader to meet with members of the Other Russia opposition, including Gary Kasparov and former Deputy Prime Minister Boris Nemtsov, co-author of the definitive white paper on the Putin regime. That event, small but significant in itself, took place last July during Obama’s two-day summit in Moscow, at which the much-sensationalized topic of a “reset” on U.S.-Russian relations culminated in the following decisions:
1. In the interest of prompting Russian cooperation on further UN sanctions against Iran and the halting of its nuclear weapons program, the United States would abandon its proposed missile defense shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and refrain from publicly criticizing Russia’s authoritarian domestic policies and human rights abuses;
2. Both countries would initiate negotiations toward a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT);
3. Russia agreed to let U.S. military planes to transport troops and weapons in its skies toward Afghanistan without incurring transit charges;
4. A bilateral presidential commission would be created to accelerate the pace of U.S.-Russian engagement on a host of issues ranging from civil society, culture, arms control, agriculture, education, and science and technology.
Six months have passed since the United States set about offering inducements to good behavior to its former Cold War antagonist, and it’s worth assessing the progress that’s been made thus far.
After committing herself last December to the view that human rights in Russia is a subject best discussed “behind closed doors” for the sake of comity, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has not uttered a single critical word in public for the Kremlin’s erosion of democracy and violation of basic freedoms that have continued apace since Obama left Moscow. (According to some reports, she hasn’t uttered any in private either.) The worst of these abuses arguably occurs in the realm of Russian media — or better to say, media that isn’t owned and operated by the state.
In September 2009, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released “Anatomy of Injustice,” a well-researched and comprehensive report on the killing of Russian journalists, from the recognizable yet vulnerable muckrakers of Novaya Gazeta to the bold editors of backwater newsletters. Russia is the third deadliest country for journalists, behind Iraq and Algeria, and the ninth worst at investigating their murders. As CPJ board member Kati Marton wrote in her preface:
The 17 who have been killed in recent years covered a wide range of topics: organized crime, corporate corruption, bribe-taking among public officials, unrest in the Northern Caucasus republics (for, though the war in Chechnya has been pronounced over, in reality, bloodletting has merely relocated to its neighbors). A charade of justice followed each of these killings. Typically, authorities quickly substitute robbery or personal grudges for real motives. At times, the official response would be comic were it not for the tragic outcomes.
For all the attention that the West pays to China’s censorship of Google, vanishingly small concern is shown for the inevitable fate of independent-minded reporters in Russia who defy the state or the mafia elements who get away with murder so long as they don’t meddle in politics. Not that there aren’t marked successes by some brave dissidents. My friend and democratic activist Oleg Kozlovsky found recently that his difficulty in obtaining a passport for travel overseas quickly evaporated once his case became known to blogs and Twitter. (Kozlovsky was previously conscripted into the Russian army as a way of shutting him up.)
The Romanian novelist and hardheaded Communist sympathizer Israit Panati remarked upon being given an official tour of the Soviet Union in 1927: “Yes, I see all the broken eggs. Now where’s this omelet of yours?” The State Department’s supposed yield from acquiescence to Putinist criminality was to have been cooperation on Iran. Unfortunately, no one seems to have informed the Putinists.
Just this month Sergei Kiriyenko, the head of the Rosatom state nuclear corporation, told reporters in Moscow that “2010 is the year of Bushehr,” referring to the long awaited $1 billion nuclear power plant that Russia has been building for Tehran for a decade and a half and that the United States and European Union agree is intended for military rather than civilian purposes.
And those sanctions? While Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has signaled impatience with Tehran’s refusal to abide by a Kremlin-proposed fuel production agreement, he has not formally endorsed new financial tethers on his country’s major trading partner. Lavrov spoke at length to reporters at a Moscow press conference on January 21 and sounded more like Europe’s public relations consultant for the mullahs when he said: “Our goal is absolutely transparent. We want the international community to have no doubt in the exclusively peaceful nature of this program. With that understanding, no one questions the right of Iran to use peaceful nuclear energy.”
Pootie sees Iran as the enemy of his enemy (USA), so it is to be expected that he helps Iran as much as possible. Despots that don’t hang together, hang separately.
The time to get a grip on Pootie is past. The USA lost the strategic initiative when it refused to assist Georgia in repelling the Russian invasion. That would have a simple, legal thing for the USA to do. One B-2 and a few of 2000 Lb JDAMS would have cut the supply line for the Russian invaders. The bombs would have fallen on Georgia, which would have left Putin with a major diplomatic problem. How do you complain about your troops getting bombed when they are invading another country? Then there is the problem of getting them back.
It is a long walk on goat trails across those Mountains.
Bush just didn’t have the ‘nads to stop the Russians. Pootie was counting on that. The proper US response could have led to Poote retiring or at least being weakened enough to encourage competition.
Instead Pootie and the war mongers have been encouraged. The Ukraine read the writing on the wall.
Pootie’s gamble worked and both the USA and NATO have been shown to be the toothless old dogs they are. After putting a leash on America, why shouldn’t Russia help Iran with the muzzle?
I believe the problem goes beyond our Russian policy to the administration’s approach to the world: first, a belief that every other nation’s behavior hinges on the US; second, and consequently, that we can, by our abject humility, “reset” every conflict now blazing around the planet.
In the end, this approach bespeaks of a profound lack of interest in foreign affairs by the Obama administration. Their hope, I would guess, is to reset and withdraw.
See “The reset button of the selfless mind”:
http://vulgarmorality.wordpress.com/2010/01/09/the-reset-button-of-the-selfless-mind/
As a libertarian and isolationist, I think a question that is too little asked, is why are we trying to control russia’s behavior in the first place? Why do we expend our dollars, and potentially lives, to ensure that no country in europe need have much of a defense budget?
I guess by accident, the obama administration’s neglect of its purported duties as world police, is one of his few traits not distressing to libertarians.
Libertarians take too little notice of the strategic designs of others, as either known through intelligence or reasonably inferred from public behavior. It should occur to you that, despite the putative difference in national power, Russia and its networks is the one attempting to exert offensive forms of control, and that the US conducts its strategy in order to minimize or check that offensive, generally at the invitation of a very large number of smaller governments. Europe is a case in point: Europe is effectively disarmed, both in materiel and (more importantly) in political culture, so America – if it perceives a Russian threat – cannot withdraw without ceding the field to that threat. Now, you may debate the likelihood of tanks rolling across the Fulda Gap; fine. But consider that, for example, a large and active US military installation might make it seem trickier and more expensive to seize control of German energy supplies via oil and gas delivery nexes in Russia, Ukraine, and elsewhere under Moscow’s overt or covert control. Consider that US presence makes the US a natural supplier of German armed forces – and therefore requiring US advisers and sellers, rather than Russian advisers and sellers. And military installations make military intelligence and then civilian intelligence a natural area of cooperation, based on mutual interest in hard assets and geopolitical interests. And so on.
Libertarians, in my observation, are too preoccupied with crafting and refining their ideology. Look at the World, not as it must be for the sake of your ideology but as it is. Russia is not like other countries. You must open your mind.
Putin puts Obama in his lowly place and laughs at us.
We are a weak nation, and the wolves smell us, thanks Obama….
Once again, our courageous allies, the Hmong have been betrayed, this time by Thailand to communist Laos. Thousands of terrified Hmong forced against their will into Laos. G-D help these innocents!
see worldnetdaily: Government silences, deports thousands
Human-rights activists alarmed over Thai move
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124605
#4. After reading it carefully, I am not persuaded that america should serve as europe’s military vis a vis russia. Sure, if we leave, russia will either have more influence or europe will arm itself.
It strikes me that the america’s acting as the european military since the end of WWII is a very concrete and specific matter, and suggestions that libertarians are navel-gazers don’t really speak to the point.
While there was a time when it seemed important to prevent the spread of communism, russia has had an anti-communist revolution since then, and america is going communist one law at a time…
I will note I often observe the absurdity of an american military supposedly ‘stretched too thin’ and requiring more soldiers and billions for every country we occupy, while we are fully prepared to fight a tank war against the soviet union, and goodness knows what else in japan and hundreds of other countries around the globe.
Perhaps only an ideologue will speculate about whether america can continue to spend trillions beyond its means each year, and what the end game might look like when the ponzi scheme collapses, but it strikes me that at some point, americans may want to actually make some tough choices about our role in the world–and whether we ought to bankrupt ourselves while propping up the economies of the rest of the world through military and financial subsidies.
President Obama really needs to stop sitting on Putin’s face with his pants down; that’s how much of a pansy Obama is on the international side of things. You don’t gain respect by simply bending over & using your favorite lube while Obama bad mouths the United States. That’s not diplomacy.
Putin correctly read Obama as a thin-skinned, America hating Marxist. Supplication is not the answer Obama.
PT it’s a shame you’re so easily satisfied with total nonsense.
Don’t know how I can even look in the mirror some days…
P T Bull, history. Those that don’t learn from it are doomed to repeat it.
Mr. Weiss’ knowledge of geography and politics can be best illustrated by his belief that one can travel by rail from Ukraine to Afghanistan without having to go through Russia.
P T Bull,
Russia’s defense spending is only 6% that of USA and 10% that of Europe. Russophobes claim that in a few years, the Russian population will die out and its economy is already in ruins. Thus Russia poses no threat to Europe.
However, there are 2 reasons why the Western media should brainwash the public into fearing Russia:
1. Russia remains the strongest non-NATO country militarily. Thus, until China’s military matures, Russia is the only scarecrow that can scare the US taxpayers into sacrificing their hard-earned money to support the military-industrial lobby.
2. Russia stands in the way of Exxon and other oil companies’ gaining control over Central Asian oil and gas.
As Russia regains its prominence in the U.S. foreign policy agenda, many wonder whether Obama’s policy of accommodating Russia’s interests for the sake of mutual cooperation will be politically sustainable. Despite heavy Congressional opposition to the new START nuclear disarmament treaty with Russia, Saradzhyan emphasized that the United States is “a rational actor” and that “the level of attention paid to Russia will remain sufficient.” With the balance of power and the American position in the world changing rapidly, the definition of “sufficient” might well be subject to debate. What remains certain, however, is that the “reset” policy has effected a paradigm shift; now it is up to American policymakers to take advantage and accelerate Russia’s transition from uneasy counterpart to strategic partner.