• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Russia’s Strategic Choices
   M   a   y   2   0   0   7
P
resident Putin’s speech in Munich, hisaddress to parliament, the ForeignMinistry’s policy paper, and the practi-cal developments that ollowed rom thesestatements have set the stage or a closer look at Russia’s role in the world and the implica-tions or the West. Anyone listening to Russian ocials isimpressed by their sel-condence, and eventriumphalism. As the Russians see it, Russiais up, the United States is down, and Europeis out. This jubilation is understandable. Fortoo long, Russian elites elt humiliated, re- jected, and ridiculed. Just ten years ago, thetalk o the global village was o a world with-out Russia. Today it is about a Russia resur-gent: a sea change, one worth celebrating.
An Apparent Success Story …
There is no question that Russia is back onits eet, at long last. The post-Soviet econom-ic slump is almost history—in 2007, atereight years o steady growth, Russia’s grossdomestic product will reach its 1990 level.The macroeconomic indicators are stellar.Moscow is no longer a supplicant at the In-ternational Monetary Fund (IMF), it is onthe threshold o joining the World Trade Or-ganization (WTO), and is setting its aim onthe Organisation or Economic Cooperationand Development (OECD). As the West lostmuch o its leverage over Russia, the coun-try’s territorial integrity was restored: Chech-enization
has 
worked, so ar. The UnitedStates has become an object o rough ocialcensure, and some near neighbors, like Geor-gia and Estonia, are being subjected to toughactions. “We are now big and rich,” saidVladimir Putin as he shrugged o a reporter’squestion about other nations’ revived con-cerns about Russia. He is also on record say-ing that deending national interests normal-ly arouses oreign opposition. It is only one-sided concessions that win the applause.Like most developments within the coun-try, Russia’s oreign policy is inormed by aclear material interest. Moscow is looking oropportunities wherever they may be, and isprepared to compete tooth and nail to get what it wants. This is the oundation o whatForeign Minister Sergei Lavrov calls com-mon sense, which has replaced ideological,idealistic, or, indeed, any other nonmaterialanities in Russia’s oreign relations.Russia’s ultimate interest is a status o amajor world power, on par with the UnitedStates and China. With the country sover-eign again, and the Kremlin ully sovereign within it, the next step is to eliminate ar-rangements that were concluded when Mos-cow’s infuence was at its nadir. Having re-covered rom a period o weakness, Russia isturning revisionist. That should come as nosurprise: since the mid-1990s Russian or-eign ministers adopted Prince Gorchakov, Alexander II’s able top diplomat, as their role
Summ
Russia’s recent oreign policyhas taken on a combative toneand adopted a revisionistcontent. Moscow today speaksits mind publicly and reely,and makes clear it no longerwants to be bound by accordsconcluded when Russia wasweak. However, while theKremlin is clear about what itdoes not like or want, it hasyet to articulate a positiveinternational agenda. In act,Russia aces a number oundamental oreign policychoices that cannot beexplained by a reerence tosheer pragmatism or the showo newly regained power. Indealing with Russia at thisstage, the West needs to reachbeyond the binary ormula ointegration or isolation andocus instead on the nationalinterests.
B Dmt Tnn
Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment or International Peace
EndowmEnt FoR IntERnatIonal PEaCE
CaRnEGIE
PolicyBrief
We are pleased to present a newlook or Carnegie Endowment PolicyBries inspired by the launch o ourNew Vision in February 2007. Learnmore about Carnegie and itsinternational operations atwww.CarnegieEndowment.org.
 
Dmitri Trenin
is seniorassociate and deputy director othe Carnegie Moscow Center. Heretired rom the Russian Armyater a military career thatincluded participating in theGeneva strategic arms controlnegotiations and teaching at theMilitary Institute. Trenin was thefrst Russian ofcer to be selectedor the NATO Deense College.He holds a Ph.D. rom theInstitute o the U.S.A. andCanada (1984), and was a seniorellow at the Institute o Europerom 1993 to 1997. He is theauthor o numerous articles andseveral books, including
The End of Eurasia
(Carnegie, 2002),
Russia’s Restless Frontier: TheChechnya Factor in Post-Soviet Russia
(Carnegie, 2004), and
 Getting Russia Right 
 
(orthcom-ing, Carnegie 2007).
model. It took Gorchakov ourteen years torepeal the Paris treaty, which ollowedRussia’s humiliating deeat in the Crimean war. In Gorchakov’s ootsteps, Vladimir Putinthreatened to pull out o the ConventionalForces in Europe (CFE) treaty less than seven-teen years ater it was signed.But this is hardly an isolated case. Russiahas abruptly changed the rules o the game inthe Sakhalin-2 project. Its intention to quitthe Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF)treaty is not a hollow threat. The Russian mil-itary see it as a relic o the Cold War, totally unsuited to twenty-rst century strategic reali-ties, and discriminating against the two coun-tries which are parties to it, the United Statesand Russia. In the name o the Russian na-tional security interests, it has to go. This is,verbatim, the Bush administration’s rationaleor withdrawing rom the Anti-Ballistic Mis-sile (ABM) Treaty. Like the United States,Russia now preers to have a ree hand.
Taking a Second Look
Critics say that this happy triumphalism isshort-sighted and may be short-lived. It is notso much Russia that is up, but that energy prices are. Yet, what goes up, must come down.Even i the demand continues to be strong andprices stay high, there are well-ounded con-cerns about Russia’s ability to satisy that de-mand. Investment, technology, inrastructure,and eciency are all wanting. Russia, o course, will continue as an energy source or the in-dustrialized and industrializing world, but itdoes not qualiy as the world’s secretary o en-ergy. And, except or arms and metals, there islittle else it oers on the global market.Much in Russia’s behavior continues to be areaction to what outsiders do or say. Russiaeels strong, but it is still strangely prickly, which reveals deep-seated insecurity. In a dra-matic reversal rom Soviet practices, Russiangovernment propagandists masochistically seek out criticisms o Moscow’s policies—the black-er, the better—and have them translated andbeamed to the domestic audience, probably tooment popular indignation with “oreign Rus-sophobia.” O-hand comments by U.S. o-cials, obscure articles in U.S. journals, and dulldocuments issued by U.S. government agen-cies that are not even mentioned by the U.S.media become top stories in Russia, serving asa proo o the United States’ hidden agenda,believed to be still centered on Russia.Russia takes issue with U.S. “attempts toconstruct a unipolar world” (as Putin put it inhis Munich speech), NATO enlargement,U.S. missile deense deployments in CentralEurope, and the ocial U.S. policy o democ-racy promotion. Interestingly, Moscow pres-ents these issues as direct threats or at least se-rious problems; even as it says that, eectively,they mean little: a unipolar world is a chimera;NATO enlargement actually weakens the alli-ance; ten interceptors in Poland guided by aradar in the Czech Republic will not blunt theRussian deterrent; color revolutions have z-zled out, and an “orange” Ukraine is a moreamenable partner or Russia than Leonid
 
Kuchma’s government ever was and certainly more than Alexander Lukashenko’s Belarusis today.
A Frustrated Russia
Privately, top Russian ocials still reel rom therejection o their earlier overtures. Moscow’sprivate probing on a possibility to join NATO was never seriously entertained; its removal o an intelligence gathering station in Cuba wastaken or granted; its acceptance o U.S. orcesin Central Asia and U.S. military instructors inGeorgia were seen as reluctant bowing to reali-ties; its mild reaction to NATO membershipor the Baltic states and to the U.S. withdrawalrom the ABM Treaty were attributed to Rus-sia’s general oreign policy impotence.
 
There was certainly a lack o sensitivity in the West, which rustrated Russia. However, what Rus-sian leaders ail to realize is that a repetition o these litanies engenders no sympathy, let alonesoul-searching in the West.Putin’s demarche in Munich vented thisrustration. He also rejected the two previous
2
POLICY BRIEF
 
models o Russian-Western relations, as hesaw them: Gorbachev’s partnership throughconcessions and Yeltsin’s partnership throughsubmission. Instead, Putin sought to lay downhis own terms o engagement—partnershipthrough strength, built on respect and equali-ty. It remains to be seen whether the new toughness will breed understanding and en-gagement or simply more toughness.
Looking for the PositiveSide of Russia’s Foreign Policy
Unlike the perceived slights and strong re-sponses, the positive elements o Russia’s or-eign policy agenda are understated. Moscow bungled a real chance to take the lead on en-ergy issues during its G8 presidency: itsheavy-handed handling o the gas price dis-pute with Ukraine, and then Belarus, eec-tively ramed its rst year in the world’s topchair. By the time Russia’s presidency hadended, its credibility had markedly ebbed.Russia ratied the Kyoto protocol as part o adeal to get the EU’s approval o Russia’s WTObid, but its position on global warming is un-clear. Russia joined its G8 partners in writingo poor countries’ debts, in Moscow’s case,mostly or past arms sales to the regimes thatare no more. On ghting poverty itsel, Rus-sia briefy tried to act as an advocate o Cen-tral Asian states, but the interest died down when this attempt ell fat.The problem is that, just as inside Russia, ahigh and prestigious position is associated with privilege and status, rather than responsi-bility. The Kremlin appears to see the G8 asthe equivalent o a global Politburo, and theUN Security Council as a central committee.Craving or status is natural among nations,but one has to match ambitions to capabili-ties. Great power only makes sense in thetwenty-rst century as long as it is also a greatcountry, attractive to its own people. Energy superpower is a myth, and a dangerous one.Being the only major country that can openly dey the United States is a distinction laced with liabilities. Moscow, as an inormal spokes-man or the major emerging economies (Bra-zil, Russia, India, China, or BRIC), has ew supporters in Beijing, Brasilia, or Delhi. TheShanghai Cooperation Organization may “unite” more than one-third o the world’spopulation, but Russia’s share in the SCO’s“grand total” is a meager 5 percent.Despite vast potential, Russia has not beenable to make good use o its sot power. Theact that Russia has become a workplace ormillions o people rom across the ormer So-viet neighborhood is no achievement or Rus-sian oreign policy. When Moscow elt the
Strategic Choices
3
BOX 1The International Community’s Toolbox for Russia
The international community, particularly the United States, can either harm or help its relationship withRussia in several dierent ways:
n
 
When the issue o granting Russia permanent normal trading relationship (PNTR) status reachesCapitol Hill later this year, the discussion could go beyond economics and into a general debate onRussia. Should that debate lead to a negative conclusion on PNTR, it will urther harm the relation-ship, and it will ail to bring about any desirable change in Moscow’s domestic or oreign policy.
n
 
Russia’s WTO membership is the most powerul transormative instrument in the hands o theinternational community.
n
 
The Jackson-Vanik amendment—which denies unconditional normal trade relations between theUnited States and certain countries, including Russia—has no real eect on the U.S.-Russianeconomic exchanges, but has become, in Russian eyes, a symbol o U.S. ill will toward Russia. It is aclear liability.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...