More Than a ‘Reset’ Needed in U.S.-Russia Policy
No one now seriously entertains the idea that peaceful nuclear energy is what Iran is after. Nor does Russia have any qualms about arming Tehran. “There are no formal bans which would bar the delivery of any types of weapons to Iran,” Anatoly Isaikin, the head of the state arms trader Rosoboronexport, told a news conference last Thursday. In 2007 Russia signed a military contract with Iran, agreeing to sell S-300 air defense missiles to the Islamic Republic. To date, none has been delivered, but perhaps after Lavrov convinces the international community that these missiles are not intended to shoot down warplanes targeting an illicit uranium enrichment facility that Iran surely doesn’t possess, the terms of the contract will be fulfilled.
As to the reduction in nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States, some headway has indeed been made. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said a START treaty is “95 percent” done, although recent domestic political events should temper the White House’s enthusiasm for what would represent its only significant foreign policy accomplishment to date. As David Firestein has observed in the Moscow Times, Congress must ratify any treaty and
[s]ubstantively, many Republicans, and some Democrats, have concerns about key provisions of the accord, particularly, those pertaining to verification provisions. In addition, many senators have expressed concerns that START shouldn’t be ratified unless they can secure guarantees that the reduced U.S. nuclear arsenal will be sufficiently modernized. Politically, the Republicans, emboldened by strong state-wide victories in recent months in Virginia, New Jersey and now Massachusetts, will be disinclined to hand Obama a significant foreign policy achievement in advance of midterm elections in the fall.
Advertisement
Although he made the CTBT a crucial point of his foreign policy platform when campaigning for presidency, Obama has not been able to build a consensus on ratification since the treaty was last narrowly defeated (48-51) in a 1999 Senate vote, which fell mainly along party lines. (Sixty-seven votes are needed for ratification, a figure that the president could not necessarily muster even without further projected Democratic losses in the Senate.)
As far as U.S. flyover rights are concerned, though these were certified by Russia for use in Afghanistan, only twelve shipments have thus far made it through due to what the New York Times calls “bureaucratic wrangling.” More substantively, NATO has three other alternative routes to take in its so-called northern supply line: Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which just agreed on January 27 to allow nonlethal cargo to be transported by rail over its territory.
Finally, the bilateral presidential commission, conceived as a grandiose staging platform for so many little Helsinki Accords, has similarly gotten off to a rocky start. The problem began when Russia chose to appoint Vladislav Surkov to head the commission’s working group on civil society. Surkov is to Putin what Mikhail Suslov was to Brezhnev — ideologist in chief and the architect of many of the institutions of state terror. Known colloquially as the “Grey Cardinal,” Surkov, whose official title is deputy presidential chief of staff, was behind the formation of the pro-government youth squad Nashi (“Ours”), which bills itself as an “anti-fascist” movement but is more accurately described as a mephitic fusion between the Soviet Komsomol and the Hitler Youth.
Nashi’s pubescent debut was countering demonstrations in Moscow waged on behalf of Ukraine’s Orange Revolution in 2004, which ended (at least temporarily) Russia’s irredentist stage-managing of it former satellite’s internal political economy. Since then, Nashi has threatened the British ambassador in Moscow, Tony Brenton, for his willingness to meet with the opposition at its Another Russia conference in July 2005; held daily protests outside the Estonian embassy — and accosted Estonia’s ambassador Marina Kaljurand — for Tallinn’s decision to relocate a World War II memorial on its own soil, erected by the Soviets during their occupation of the Baltic nation, from a city thoroughfare to a proper military cemetery; routinely harassed anti-Putin protestors; and waged social campaigns against drinking, smoking, abortion, and birth control.
However, Surkov is best known for being the coiner of the phrase “sovereign democracy,” which, as Masha Lipman of the Washington Post defined it, “conveys two messages: first, that Russia’s regime is democratic and, second, that this claim must be accepted, period. Any attempt at verification will be regarded as unfriendly and as meddling in Russia’s domestic affairs.”
So making this glowering bureaucrat the dragoman of Russian civil society is rather like appointing a date rapist to lead a Take Back the Night rally. But that hasn’t stopped Michael McFaul, the American co-chair of the working group and Obama’s main Russian policy adviser, from sounding positively gleeful about his first confab with Surkov, which occurred in Washington on January 27. Here is an excerpt from McFaul’s interview with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty a day later:
RFE/RL: As I’m sure you’re aware, more than 60 members of Congress sent a letter to President Obama in December protesting the appointment of Mr. Surkov as the group’s co-chair. The legislators called him “one of the masterminds behind Russia’s authoritarian course” and urged Obama to boycott these meetings until he was replaced. Did that controversy come up either in today’s meeting or in the run-up to it? And also, do you think the letter cast a pall over the group’s ability to work productively?
McFaul: It didn’t come up as an issue for discussion. Of course, I’m well aware of the controversy. And I guess my reaction to it is, let’s be clear — this was an initiative by the United States government to try to create this working group. It was my initiative, I’ll tell you very honestly. It was my idea. And we were happy that the Russians agreed to have this as part of the bilateral presidential commission.
That said, it’s not for us to choose who the Russians decide should be the co-chairs of any of these working groups. I can’t even quite understand how one would do that. I know the controversy around Mr. Surkov, and I’ll leave that for others to comment on. Maybe there was a time in American history when we were that powerful and we could tell other countries what to do all the time and who to name to bi-national commissions, but we are certainly not trying to do that in our relationship with Russia today.
Spoken like a true exponent of the “post-American” presidency. McFaul then went on explain that although Surkov has an unsavory reputation in the United States, McFaul himself has one in Russia, “given what I’ve written and what I’ve said about Mr. Surkov’s bosses,” and so this menage of mutually suspicious bruisers is actually an encouraging sign for bilateral relations. Yet rarely have members of the Obama administration, in seeking to apologize for perceived U.S. perfidies past and present, gone so far as to openly compare themselves to architects of a contemporary Asiatic police state.
“Reset” in hindsight has claimed one extraordinary achievement for the administration: it has wiped out what once seemed a permanent memory with respect to U.S.-Russian relations. As Vladimir Kara-Murza, the Washington bureau chief of RTVi television network and a former advisor to Russian presidential candidate Vladimir Bukovsky, has written recently, there is no surprise in the fact that the avalanche of American concessions to the Kremlin has not precipitated a similar outpouring of generosity and good will by the latter, only smirking satisfaction. “Repressive regimes view concessions as a sign of weakness,” wrote Kara-Murza, “not a cause for reciprocity. Why would a government that is dishonest and aggressive to its own citizens behave like a noble and trustworthy partner on the world stage?”
This is lesson that should have been learned twenty years ago, after Reagan successfully put pressure on Gorbachev about Soviet political prisoners while also getting down to business on nonproliferation and arms reduction. It is not an indication of statesmanship or geopolitical maturity, pace Michael McFaul, to be unable to hold these two separate concepts in one’s head at the same time. The administration’s failure is only heightened by historical circumstance. There is no ideological superstructure or totalitarian stranglehold on culture in today’s Russia. Why, then, should Putin and his improvisatory siloviki find themselves the easy beneficiaries of a fire sale of Western principles that managed to make it through a far more challenging epoch?
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.