The Russian Crossroads

For those of us that missed it (and yes, that included me; I had to watch it a day late on grainy State Dept. video), Secretary Rice gave a major speech on Russia yesterday, which might be considered something of an epilogue on the war in Georgia. It's worth reading/watching in its entirety, but here is a summary and some highlights:


Rice lamented an emerging pattern of behavior by the Russians:

I’m referring, among other things, to Russia’s intimidation of its sovereign neighbors, its use of oil and gas as a political weapon, its unilateral suspension of the CFE Treaty, its threat to target peaceful nations with nuclear weapons, its arms sales to states and groups that threaten international security, and its persecution – and worse – of Russian journalists, and dissidents, and others.

The picture emerging from this pattern of behavior is that of a Russia increasingly authoritarian at home and aggressive abroad.

Rice admitted that Georgia had been foolish in responding to S. Ossetian shelling with an offensive operation; however, this did not amount to fault:

But Russia’s leaders used this as a pretext to launch what, by all appearances, was a premeditated invasion of its independent neighbor. Indeed, Russia’s leaders had laid the groundwork for this scenario months ago – distributing Russian passports to Georgian separatists, training and arming their militias, and then justifying the campaign across Georgia’s border as an act of self-defense.

Regarding the aftermath of the war, Rice said an EU force of peacekeepers was ready to deploy to the separatist regions, but Russia has refused to allow international monitors and NGO's into the regions, "despite ongoing militia violence and retribution against innocent Georgians." (Do recall that a lack of a neutral peacekeeping force in the regions was one of the principal causes of the war.) Predictably, there was no tough talk about restoring Georgia's borders; only a softly-spoken line about hoping that the provinces will be turned back peacefully at some point in the future.

Rice also commented about Russia's lame "how would you like it if our military assets were in the Carri bean" attempt to punish us for having warships (well, really, just one "warship"--a DDG--and a command ship and a coast guard cutter) in the Black Sea. She said Russia was free to associate with countries in the Western hemisphere...

But we are confident that our ties with our neighbors – who long for better education and better health care and better jobs, and better housing – will in no way be diminished by a few, aging Blackjack bombers, visiting one of Latin America’s few autocracies, which is itself being left behind by an increasingly peaceful and prosperous and democratic hemisphere.

Rice also hit the familiar points about Russia isolating itself from world economic institutions, and how this war only hurt them without accomplishing any "enduring strategic objective." The language of liberalism appeared frequently, especially with regard to globalisation and democracy.

Moving onto the more strategically consequential parts, Rice noted an apparent shift in the world-view of the Russians from the liberal, globalised outlook to a rather backward looking view; which she impliedly attributed to Putin.

But perhaps the worst fallout for Moscow is that its behavior has fundamentally called into question whose vision of Russia is really guiding that country. There was a time recently when the new president of Russia laid out a positive and forward-looking vision of his nation’s future.

This was a vision that took into account Russia’s vulnerabilities: its declining population and heartbreaking health problems; its failure thus far to achieve a high-tech, diversified economy like those to Russia’s west and increasingly to Russia’s east; and the disparity between people’s quality of life in Moscow, and St. Petersburg, and in a few other cities – and those in Russia’s countryside.
This was a vision that called for strengthening the rule of law, and rooting out corruption, and investing in Russia’s people, and creating opportunities not just for an elite few, but for all Russian citizens to share in prosperity.

This was a vision that rested on what President Medvedev referred to as the “Four I’s”: investment, innovation, institutional reform, and infrastructure improvements to expand Russia’s economy. And this was a vision that recognized that Russia cannot afford a relationship with the world that is based on antagonism and alienation.

This is especially true in today’s world, which increasingly is not organized around polarity – multi-, uni-, and certainly not bi-. In this world, there is an imperative for nations to build a network of strong and unique ties to many influential states.

And that is a far different context than much of the last century, when U.S. foreign policy was, frankly, hostage to our relationship with the Soviet Union. We viewed everything through that lens, including our relations with other countries. We were locked in a zero-sum, ideological conflict. Every state was to choose sides, and that reduced our options.

Well, thankfully, that world is also gone forever, and it’s not coming back. As a result, the United States is liberated to pursue a multidimensional foreign policy. And that is what we are doing.

This view, one might assume, is what leads to the differences in how Russia and the West view the role of the NATO alliance. Rice described our view of NATO as:

With the end of the Cold War, we and our allies have worked to transform NATO – form – to bring it from an alliance that manned the ramparts of a divided Europe, to a means for nurturing the growth of a Europe whole, free, and at peace – and an alliance that confronts the dangers, like terrorism, that also threaten Russia.

We have opened NATO to any sovereign, democratic state in Europe that can meet its standards of membership. We’ve supported the right of countries emerging from communism to choose what path of development they pursue and what institutions they wish to join.

But, the Russians:

[V]ew the emergence of free and independent democratic neighbors – most recently, during the so-called “color revolutions” in Georgia, and Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan – not as a source of security, but as a source of threat to Russia’s interests.

Where do we go from here?

[O]ur strategic goal now is to make clear to Russia’s leaders that their choices could put Russia on a one-way path to self-imposed isolation and international irrelevance....We cannot afford to validate the prejudices that some Russian leaders seem to have: that if you press free nations hard enough – if you bully them, and you threaten them, and you lash out – they will cave in, and they’ll forget, and eventually they will concede.

The United States and Europe must stand up to this kind of behavior, and to all who champion it. For our sake – and for the sake of Russia’s people, who deserve a better relationship with the rest of the world – the United States and Europe must not allow Russia’s aggression to achieve any benefit. Not in Georgia – not anywhere.
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We will resist any Russian attempt to consign sovereign nations and free peoples to some archaic “sphere of influence.”
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And we will not allow Russia to wield a veto over the future of the Euro-Atlantic community – neither what states are offered membership, nor the choice of states that accept it. We have made this particularly clear to our friends in Ukraine.

Analysis

Overall, I think this is very consistent with our strategic thinking. We are trying to pressure Russia to deepen its ties to the world economic market, become more democratic, thus attempting to capitalize of the peace dividends from economic interdependence and the "democratic peace." Russia's partial integration, as they are now, threatens this system and creates the potential for conflict.

Moving onto the details, I find encouragement in that she showed some empathy for the Russians, both in terms of their paranoia (quoted) and their desire to regain their previous strength (not quoted). It's also encouraging that this empathy is not simply words; Rice has highlighted our invitations to offer the Russians transparency on our ABM systems and the seat Russia has at every NATO summit. There is no doubt we are trying to assuage their fears--the problem is that they still don't believe us.

And therein lies the problem. We don't want NATO to be about opposing Russia anymore. That world, to us, is over. But clearly, it's not to the Russians. They see NATO as the same enemy they did during the Cold War; and when NATO expands to their border they lose their post-WWII "buffer." When they attack Georgia, threaten Poland, foment riots in and cyber-attack Estonia, and speculate about an invasion of Crimea, they are forcing NATO to live in their world. The prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. So, while we insist NATO is about terrorism and more generalized collective security (which is true as an ideal), the reality is that NATO is very much concerned about preventing another Georgia. Which in turn confirms Russia's (Putin's) worldview and puts the (Medvedev's) integration/reform agenda on hold.

...and that puts us on a track to a new cold war. I don't see anything here that gets us off that track. Sure, there is clearly a lot of economic pressure on Russia, but can we expect them to place their comfort over (what they believe is) their security?