WORKING PAPERS 3 2007

ALEXEI ARBATOV

MOSCOW AND MUNICH: A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR RUSSIAN DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN POLICIES

CARNEGIE MOSCOW CENTER MOSCOW

Working Papers have been published since 1999. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Carnegie Endowment or the Carnegie Moscow Center. Carnegie Moscow Center Russia,125009 Moscow, Tverskaya Ul., 6/2. Tel: +7 (495) 935-8904 Fax: +7 (495) 935-8906 E-mail: info@carnegie.ru http://www.carnegie.ru Electronic versions of all Carnegie Moscow Center publications may be found at: http://www. carnegie.ru Working Papers provide the readers with the access to the main current research on Russia and Eurasia domestic and foreign policy. The series includes intermediate results of research or the articles for immediate release. You may send your comments to the e-mail address above. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace or the Carnegie Moscow Center. The author analyzes the reasons, features and prospects for Russias domestic and foreign policy, taking as a base Putins press conference and speech in Munich in February, 2007.

ABOUT

THE

AUTHOR

Alexei Arbatov is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Dr. Prof. Sc. (History); Director of the Center for International Security of the Institute for International Economy and International Relations of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Scholar-in-Residence of the Carnegie Moscow Center and Director of its Non-Proliferation Program. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2007

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CONTENTS
How effective is the vertical executive hierarchy? ........................................................................... 4 Who sets the national priorities and how? ........................................................................................... 5 Corruption Munchausens Syndrome ............................................................................................... 6 Can the model be changed? .................................................................................................................. 7 The Cold War as a historical phenomenon ......................................................................................... 8 A historical perspective on the current deterioration in relations................................................... 11 Political reality and perceptions.......................................................................................................... 13 Lost opportunities ................................................................................................................................ 14 The CIS as an apple of discord............................................................................................................ 16 The West and Russian democracy....................................................................................................... 18 Yet another third way for Russia? ..................................................................................................... 20 The challenges of multipolarity .......................................................................................................... 22 Guidelines for the future ..................................................................................................................... 24 About the Carnegie Foundation ......................................................................................................... 27

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During the Soviet years, any major speech by the states leader was followed by months of tedious party and trade union meetings to express approval and support, but in todays Russia, it only takes a couple of days before the public and the media turn their attention to other matters. Such was the case with President Vladimir Putins big press conference on February 1, 2007. This shows just how much the Russian political system has changed, but at the same time it is also something of a shame, because the presidents comments addressed important domestic policy issues. It is all the more a shame as most or all of the presidents responses really did seem to be impromptu and gave a more direct picture of the leaderships approach to policy than is generally the case with official speeches that have been checked and approved by various aides and officials. Shortly after this press conference took place, attention shifted to Putins speech in Munich on March 10, 2007, which became, if not a watershed, then at least a visible milestone in Russias relations with the United States and other Western countries. The Western media and many politicians reacted to Putins words with unexpected vigor and hostility, provoking an equally hostile counter-reaction from the Russian media and Russian political circles. There was a clear whiff in the air of the Cold War, which fifteen years earlier had been declared over and until recently had been considered irrevocably relegated to the past. In this context, it comes as no surprise that people are now asking themselves if we are headed towards a new Cold War between Russia, as the legal successor to the Soviet Union, and the United States, each backed by their respective coalitions of allies and partners. Both of these speeches by Russias president provide ample material for reflecting on the evolution of Moscows domestic and foreign policy and the consequences it will have for Russia and the rest of the world.

HOW

EFFECTIVE IS THE VERTICAL EXECUTIVE HIERARCHY?

In terms of form, one should give Putin his due, for he displayed a great breadth and depth of knowledge at his press conference, dealing with a wide range of issues and responding with a swiftness and sense of humor that any of the current G8 leaders, some of whom will never attain this level, would envy. As for the substance, the presidents views on many of the issues raised seemed entirely convincing, and on others were perfectly in keeping with politically correct standards. This applies, for example, to such issues as the choice of a successor, energy security, the transition to marketbased relations with the CIS countries, the creation of a union state with Belarus, NATOs expansion, Irans nuclear program, U.S. plans to deploy elements of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic and other issues. But how these sound ideas and policies are to be implemented and put into practice by the state machinery (the vertical executive hierarchy, as it has been dubbed) is another matter altogether. Russias state machinery has become a poorly controlled conglomerate of different agencies that have joined with big business clans to establish their own material and bureaucratic interests. In this respect, even the president himself could not resist making a sarcastic remark. Although he was referring to the draft of a particular law, the implications went much further: The Government, Putin said, extends just as deeply beneath the surface as do our oil and gas reserves, and sometimes at such depths things do indeed get lost. Indeed, Russias swollen federal bureaucracy has no counterbalance in the form of strong legislative and judicial branches of power, an independent press and non-governmental organizations. The bureaucracy, which during the Soviet era had at least to some extent been controlled by the Communist Party organization, has now become a self-sufficient force that freely and imperceptibly replaces the goals of the nation with its own corporate interests and submits to the will of higher political authorities only when their decisions do not contradict these interests. With the stroke of a pen, Putin can fire any minister and dismiss the entire government, dissolve the Duma and the regional bodies of power, or bring even the richest oligarch to heel. However, he cannot remove this entire new class that is the Russian post-Communist nomenklatura, the fruit of a full-fledged state-monopolized capitalism, and he cannot compel it to act contrary to its own corporate interests. All of the other institutions of democratic government and civil society that might have counter-balanced the bureaucratic machine and given the president greater room to maneuver have been visibly weakened over these last years and forced into a dependent and subjugated position either through law or through informal political, financial and supervisory schemes. This is Russias biggest national problem today. It is precisely this situation that is giving rise to the biggest obstacles facing the countrys development, and it is this situation that explains why many urgent issues are not being resolved, but are only patched up somewhat from year to year.

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WHO

SETS THE NATIONAL PRIORITIES AND HOW?

As a starting point it is worthwhile to consider how national priorities and a development strategy for the society and state are elaborated. In countries having advanced market economies and a normal rather than sovereign type of democracy (even taking into account all the specific features of each individual democracy), national ideas are primarily formulated by the major political parties, the think tanks that serve them, and the media. During elections, these programs are examined by the ruling circles, passed or failed by voters, and, if successful, enable the political parties to install their representatives into the bodies of power and to control the state bureaucracys implementation of the objectives that have been set. Of course, this system does not always work smoothly - one needs only to look at the current problems in the United States - but it does make it possible to get timely feedback on political failures and to correct mistakes before the cost becomes too high. In Russia, on the contrary, the senior level of the bureaucracy creates political parties of power and then uses its administrative resources to ensure that these parties will gain majorities at every level of legislative assembly, with federal and regional officials hastening to join their ranks in voluntary compulsion. Clearly, such parties cannot and do not pursue any independent political programs and are unable to control the executive. On the contrary, the bureaucrats use the parties of power to control the legislative authorities at every turn. Such parties cannot represent societys interests or bring the publics hopes to the ears of the people at the top level of power. Even if individual competent and honest members of legislative assemblies try to operate differently, the system works against them because the success of the parties of power depends not on voters, but on federal or local executive bosses. These parties positions fluctuate in accordance with whatever line the executive takes (the cases of the law on citizenship and on the replacement of benefits with cash payments are just two of the most vivid examples in this respect). Political parties can call themselves whatever they want, defining themselves as social-democratic, liberal, or even great-state-patriotic. However, a partys real place within the political spectrum is not defined from above, but rather by the particular social groups the party hopes to appeal to in elections and whose interests it defends when in power. In this respect, Putins response when asked about the role of and the differences between the United Russia and A Just Russia parties seemed less than convincing, leaving the impression that he felt a certain sense of awkwardness. The idea of an artificially created loyal two-party system is reminiscent of the marble telephone in the popular Russian tale for children (Old Man Khottabych) an object that is nice to look at, but that doesnt work at all. Although it creates an illusion of broad representation, stability and cooperation between the different branches of power, it is in fact detached from society and from real public and political life, and the people, who are unable to find adequate forms of legitimate political expression through elections and the legislative assemblies, take instead to the streets in spontaneous protest, primarily over the unresolved problems of corruption, crime and interethnic friction. These feelings of protest immediately become fodder for manipulation by political extremists, and the authorities in turn, who would like to win this electoral resource over for themselves, play along with these moods. While the larger parties compete for the title of presidential party, the remaining parties either find themselves excluded from the parliaments altogether through the use of administrative resources and restrictive new electoral laws, or they resort to calling on the people to follow them back into the Soviet past or trying to gain popular support with a mix of great-state patriotism and nationalism. In practice, then, the national priorities and programs in Russia are structured to serve the general interests of the federal and regional bureaucrats, a fact which the president himself confirmed at the press conference on February 1, 2007, while describing how one particularly important issue was resolved: We got together probably fifteen or so times while drafting the demographic program, he recalled, and in the end there we were down to just two or three unresolved differences between the state agencies, but then they said to me, We cant sort out these differences ourselves we need to meet with you. So I said, Come and see me then. As extensive experience has shown, compromises made between different state agencies in any country have always served only to reduce the various bureaucratic interests to their lowest common denominator (these interests being staff expansions, budget increases and greater autonomy, as well as take-overs of adjacent agencies.) Rather than serving the real needs of the people, these compromises merely reflect the respective weights and influences of the different state organizations and officials and the degree of access they have to the person at the top. Such agreements preclude the use of innovative and breakthrough approaches that are vital for resolving serious national problems, but that run counter to conservative bureaucratic mentality.

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The labyrinths of state bureaucracy have never given rise to great initiatives or original solutions. Foreign policy, in light of its specific nature, is perhaps the only exception to this rule. In all other areas, the real initiative has always come from outside, from influential politicians, independent specialists and respected public figures. They have been implemented only when their authors have attained high state office, and even then the resistance of the bureaucracy and conservative political circles has had to be overcome. No one could possibly have any objection, for example, to the four excellent national projects assigned to first deputy prime minister Dmitry Medvedev (healthcare, education, housing construction and agricultural development.) But what principles were used to decide their funding levels and the optimum means of implementation, and what steps are being taken at ministerial and regional levels to ensure that the money is being used for its allotted purpose? Normally, this would all be part of the functions of the legislative authorities, social organizations and, if necessary, the judiciary. However, in reality, their role, as far as can be judged, is close to nonexistent. The same applies to Russias three top national priorities as formulated by Medvedev in Davos: diversifying the economy; creating a modern economic infrastructure; and investing in human resources. The concept is wonderful, but it is not at all reflected in either the 2007 federal budget or in the three-year budget plan, where state administration costs, national defense and internal security remain the main items of expenditure. The very term executive branch implies the function of executing decisions and programs drawn up by others rather than the formation of national goals and priorities. If the executive branch swells to the point where it crushes everything else, the senior political leadership ultimately becomes its prisoner rather than its master. Whatever its deficiencies, the bureaucracy has consummate skill in the art of political maneuvering and knows how to channel the leaders decisions in what it considers the right direction and distract or isolate him from undesirable alternatives. Only the ruthless terror of a Stalin or Hitler has managed to keep the bureaucracy in check, but then the entire country becomes hostage to the arbitrary will of a single man and his favorites of the moment, which can lead to national disaster. Many of the greatest problems that Russia cannot resolve effectively have their roots in this unfortunate situation. These problems include an economy skewed towards exports of raw materials, the big gap between rich and poor, the high crime rate, ongoing terrorism in the North Caucasus, the demographic decline and ethnic conflicts. They also include the degradation of the housing and municipal services sector, the growing scientific and technological gap with the worlds most advanced countries, the crisis in education, healthcare and culture, and the situation in the defense industry. This situation is further exacerbated by the festering sore of corruption, which eats away at the very foundations of the state and society, sucking the substance out of all well-intentioned laws, initiatives and projects and perverting them.

CORRUPTION MUNCHAUSENS SYNDROME

The corruption that has become a national disaster on a scale unprecedented even for Russia is not by any means simply an unfortunate anomaly. It is, rather, an inevitable and innate consequence of the system, the entirely natural result produced by combining an immature market economy what is more, one wallowing in petrodollars and an overly centralized bureaucratic model of power. The Soviet bureaucracy had only the unprofitable command economy from which to suck wealth, and the pickings were thus rather lean. More important for the Soviet bureaucrats were the privileges available to the nomenklatura (modest by todays standards) privileges such as the possibility of securing good jobs for ones children, a decent pension and an honorable plot in the cemetery. Todays bureaucrats are not concerned with personal pensions and special rations of deficit goods. They are concerned with the here and now, skimming the cream from the enormous revenues generated by privatization or the state-monopolized economy. Not encountering any checks and balances, the modern bureaucracy swells and swells as it attempts to extend its hold over society and expand its activities through a tangle of all-encompassing laws, bylaws and regulations. The bureaucrats make everyones lives miserable, from the oligarchs to retired grandmothers. However, this is where the simpler, more informal means of resolving problems come in buying a solution through bribes of all forms and sizes, from a bottle of cognac to millions of dollars paid to get deals done. Power is converted into money at every level, and money plus corporate loyalty means even greater power. No tightening of penalties or group of watchdog agencies can come to grips with this system. Worse still, these watchdog agencies and, in turn, the law enforcement bodies and courts also fall victim to the cancer of corruption and are no longer able to effectively combat either corruption or crime.

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The presidents responses to the questions he was asked about consolidating and ensuring the continuity of the state power system and about the fight against corruption (as with the recent calls to keep business and state power separate) leave a distinctly incomplete impression. For a start, what is meant by the need to continue consolidating the state power system something mentioned three times in various contexts at the February 1 press conference? If consolidation means putting a stop to the in-fighting among the cliques in the presidential administration and the government that has become even more fierce as the presidential elections approach, then yes, consolidation is indeed necessary. However, consolidation of this sort can be achieved only in a situation where the top leadership has come to power following their partys victory in elections, bringing with them their partys action plan and a staff loyal to their party and able to fill at least a hundred or so senior posts. In such a case, the executive branch can indeed function as a more or less united team, especially if they are brought closer together by pressure from an independent legislature, a strong opposition and an ever-vigilant media. Contradictions between the various groups exist within the administration of any country, but it is unacceptable when these internal struggles begin to affect fundamental development issues and even the very foundations of a great state. If the executive branch is formed as a compromise among the different groups making up the state-monopolist elite, with all their various views and interests, then fierce in-fighting between the bureaucratic cliques is inevitable. This is all the more true when the rivalry is fueled by huge sums of money and when lobbyists make their appeals not to a weak and servile parliament, but directly to the ministries and agencies that make the decisions. However, continued consolidation could also perhaps mean an even greater subordination of the other branches and levels of state power to the executive system through such methods as the creation of parties of power that are nothing more than Siamese twins. Such formulations are difficult to accept. The political leadership, not to mention the public, would entirely lose control of the resulting monolith, and this would inevitably have grave consequences for the country. The biggest problem today is not how to further consolidate the vertical executive hierarchy, but how to effectively control and manage it, how to restore the channels of feedback between the public and the authorities. The various administrative reshuffles, shake-ups and appointment of consultative bodies from above (such as the State Council and the Public Council) are inadequate to the task, just as Baron Munchausen was unable to drag himself out of the swamp by pulling his own hair. There is only one solution to this problem in the context of a more or less open market economy and non-totalitarian political system. There is no point for Russia to reinvent the wheel (whether its called sovereign democracy or something else.) This solution involves establishing a reasonable and balanced division of powers, which is the only way to create an independent judiciary, arbitration bodies and electoral commissions. This solution requires that fair and honest elections take place so that the legislative authorities, even if their rights are limited by the constitution, adequately reflect public interests and are able to manage and restrain the bureaucracy. This solution also calls for the regular replacement of senior officials and all-round development of free media and law-abiding public organizations. Of course, we do not live in an ideal world and we are beginning not with a clean slate, but with the difficult legacy of the upheavals of the 1990s, more than 70 years of Soviet power that came before, and even the legacy of a still more distant past, as well. In such a situation, democratic institutions and the norms governing political life will not just sprout up of their own accord, but must be gradually and systematically nurtured, without upsetting social stability, as prosperity increases and the public grows more aware and accepting of the principles of political tolerance, responsibility and respect for the law and for human dignity. However, the main thrust of overall political development is of great significance, and in this respect the proposed continuing consolidation of the state power system raises more questions than answers. The same solution applies for reining in corruption. Encouraging the media to be more active, appointing new watchdogs and toughening criminal penalties, all of which the president spoke about at the press conference on February 1, will not be enough to resolve the problem. It is not surprising that all of the countrys most pressing challenges are addressed by one single approach. After all, they all derive from a single big problem: the stranglehold that the state-monopoly system has on politics and the economy in Russia.

CAN

THE MODEL BE CHANGED?

A change of model would involve diversifying the economy and making a transition from an economy based on the export of raw materials to an economy based on innovative development, which

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alone can guarantee Russia a position among the worlds great powers and power centers that does not depend on oil and gas prices. Administrative reorganization and personnel reshuffles are not enough to bring about this change. The experience of the defense industry, which is geared not to the needs of market consumers, but to domestic defense procurement orders and the highly politicized competition of the international arms trade, is not much help, either. To achieve genuine and far-reaching change in the Russian economy, steps must be taken above all to thoroughly overhaul the countrys legislation and transform the current informal system of political relations that is prevalent throughout all of the structures of authority. What is needed are clearly and firmly enshrined property rights, which only a clear division of power can guarantee, an independent and objective judiciary and a system of arbitration and law enforcement. What is also needed are transparent and law-based relations between the state authorities and business, antitrust legislation and restrictions on natural monopolies, 1 and a modern and open banking, insurance and mortgage infrastructure (which Dmitry Medvedev has correctly identified as a national priority). Also needed are strong civic organizations that protect the interests of employers, employees, and consumers. Without all of this, there will be no real influx of investment, either domestic or foreign, into the high-technology sectors, and it will not be possible to sustain high rates of economic growth over the long term. The direct state investment the Communists call for would be stolen in part, and what remains would once again end up in the hands of unwieldy industrial giants flooding the country with low-quality and high-cost goods for which there is no demand. The acquisition and export of raw materials and the banking sector that services them would remain the engine of the Russian economy, but an engine with all the efficiency of an old steam locomotive. An energy superpower is like hot ice: no such superpower has ever existed or will exist. There are only countries supplying the raw materials that fuel the industrially and technologically advanced powers and coalitions: the United States, the European Union and Japan, which will soon be joined by China, India, Brazil, the ASEAN countries and little tigers of East Asia. None of these countries have built up their power through the export of raw materials, and there is no special Russian road to follow in this respect. There is good reason to be proud of the economic recovery that Russia has undergone over recent years, but it should not be forgotten that Russias GDP is still only twice the size of the U.S. defense budget (and, as Putin has noted on a number of occasions, the Russian defense budget is 25 times smaller.) However, this does not mean that Russia should pursue the goal of doubling its GDP at any price, for if this objective is attained at the cost of increasing the bias toward the export of raw materials in the economy, the negative consequences for the country could be similar in impact to what happened to the Soviet economy, overburdened by defense expenditures in the 1970s and 1980s. It is no coincidence that Putin himself has noted with regret that positive change in the real sector of the economy has been much more modest (with growth of around 4 percent a year.) However, it is precisely these high-technology sectors, including small and medium businesses, that can provide plentiful jobs for the population, reduce the gap between rich and poor, encourage scientific and technological progress (domestically, rather than for export), give the country a modern and powerful defense sector, boost exports of goods with a high added value and free Russia from the shackles of foreign raw materials prices. In this respect, Russias domestic and foreign policy are closely interconnected and markedly influence (sometimes even pressure) each other. This is why the current debate on the possibility of a new Cold War has such important implications for the countrys future prospects.

THE COLD WAR

AS A HISTORICAL PHENOMENON

Given that Cold War is a journalistic rather than a scientific term, it can be interpreted in various ways. It is often used to describe any heightened tension between states, but this interpretation does not indicate any starting point from which the rise in tension can be measured and its probable consequences and dangers assessed. A more justifiable approach would be to define the concept of Cold War based on the historical period that gave rise to the term in the first place. The Cold War was the name given to a particular state of international relations that lasted for almost 40 years from the end of the 1940s to the end of the 1980s. The history of those decades abounds with examples of how the two competing coalitions of states played out their rivalry on the economic, military and ideological fronts. However, the uniqueness of the Cold War lay in several specific features of the system of international relations it gave birth to, and these specific features can be used now as criteria for evaluating the current situation and its future development.

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First, the main parameter of the Cold War world was a clearly defined bipolar structure in international relations that divided virtually the entire world into two camps the West and the East. Two superpowers, the Soviet Union and the United States, established their respective spheres of influence in Europe and Asia in the 1950s and extended them into Latin America and Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. In some cases this divide went even further, cutting across individual countries and nations, as in Germany, Korea, Vietnam, China (from which Taiwan separated), and Palestine. This bipolar structure turned the entire world into an arena in which the two superpowers played out their tense rivalry, with varying success, right up until the end of the 1980s. International politics became a zero-sum game, that is, one sides gain was equal to the other sides loss. All other countries were either allies (real or potential), or adversaries. It was extremely rare for a country to cross from one camp to the other. Any conflict, even in a hitherto peripheral part of the world, became the focus of attention as an arena where the superpowers would stand off one against the other, staking the global balance of power between the camps and their respective chances of achieving final victory. Second, this situation led directly to another of the Cold Wars distinguishing features, namely that in practically any local or regional conflict, the superpowers found themselves on opposite sides ' ' of the barricades and essentially fought each other through their protgs or fought directly against the other superpowers client. This was true of the wars and conflicts in Korea, Indochina, Algeria, the events in Cuba and South Asia, the four wars in the Middle East, and the conflicts in the Horn of Africa, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Afghanistan. Third, this combination of circumstances meant that all the classic conditions were in place for potentially unleashing a third world war. The world came close to such a war on at least four occasions: during the second and fourth Middle East conflicts in 1957 and 1973; during the Berlin crisis in 1961; and during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, when it teetered right on the brink of war. That disaster was avoided is most likely thanks to fortunate twists of circumstance and the deterrent factor of the nuclear arms stockpiles the opposing sides had built up. These nuclear arms ensured that the consequences of war would be so devastating that they would outweigh the anticipated fruits of victory, and indeed, would leave the whole concept of victory meaningless. Rather than engaging directly in a military conflict, which they feared, the superpowers and their allies indulged in a surrogate of big war rivaling each other in their intensive preparations for the day when such a conflict would come. Journalists came up with a name for this new form of competition, too: the arms race. This arms race unprecedented in its scale, cost and intensity was the third distinguishing feature of the Cold War. The two sides deployed their armed forces, arms and military installations on all the worlds continents and oceans, but the greatest concentration was in Central Europe and the Far East, and in the surrounding airspace and seas. In some years, the rate at which nuclear weapons were deployed reached truly record levels: one intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) a day on average, and one strategic nuclear-armed submarine a month. During other periods, thousands of nuclear warheads were being deployed every year. The expansion and modernization of conventional arms was no less impressive, especially during the 1960s and the early 1980s in the NATO countries, and in the 1970s80s in the Warsaw Pact countries. Each side was commissioning hundreds of fighter planes and tactical missiles of various classes every year, as well as thousands of armored vehicles and dozens of naval vessels and multipurpose submarines. Fourth, the two sides justified their global rivalry and all the sacrifices it entailed by engaging in relentless ideological confrontation, demonizing each other and ascribing to each other all manner of evil conspiracies and aggressive intentions. This implicitly did away with the need to try to see the other sides point of view, take its interests into account, and observe moral and legal norms regarding it. In some cases, ideological confrontation pushed the superpowers and their allies into intervening in the affairs of various parts of the world, and in other cases it served as justification for geopolitical expansion and for economic and military goals. History had known other periods of fierce ideological confrontation (the crusades, religious and civil wars, the hostility between communism, fascism and bourgeois democracy between the two world wars), but it had never before encountered such a protracted and large-scale political and military confrontation. Political tension and wars between states had been more the rule than the exception in history, but the world had never before known such a long period of bipolarity during peacetime. 2 As a rule, when a bipolar situation arose, it rapidly developed into a state of war and lasted only so long as the war continued. Such was the case with the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic wars and the First World War. During the Second World War, the bipolarity really only emerged two years after the war began when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.

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Bipolarity and cold war are thus two inextricably linked fundamental attributes of what was a unique 40-year historical period in the second half of the twentieth century. Ideological opposition and the arms race (fuelled by scientific and technological progress) were secondary attributes, although they did certainly make the confrontation more dangerous and gave it additional motivation. The Cold War, it should be noted, did not represent one unchanging, continuous situation throughout its duration. It can be divided into two distinct phases, each lasting roughly twenty years: from the end of the 1940s to the end of the 1960s, and from the end of the 1960s to the end of the end of the 1980s. The first stage was characterized by bipolarity in classic pure form, with all the political, military and ideological consequences this entailed. The second phase already bore the marks of an emergent multipolarity, primarily as a result of Chinas emergence as an independent power center and the conflict between China and the Soviet Union (which even led to direct confrontation between the two on their common border in 1969, and which brought them to the brink of war when China invaded Vietnam in 1978). Bipolarity was further diluted by Western Europes growing economic strength and political activeness (Willy Brandts new Ostpolitik, for example) and the rise of the non-aligned movement headed by India and Yugoslavia. This explains why the second phase of the Cold War was characterized by comparatively less ten' sion than before, and why crises were less acute than they had previously been. The process of dtente between the Soviet Union and the West began in the early 1970s. For the first time, serious nuclear arms reduction talks took place between the two superpowers. 3 Negotiations were held on NATO and Warsaw Pact conventional forces in Europe, and the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) was signed. While Moscow and Beijing competed against each other to prove their loyalty to the doctrines of Marxism-Leninism, the ideological confrontation between East and West cooled down somewhat (as reflected in the Soviet doctrine of peaceful coexistence and the Western concept of convergence). These new shifts in direction represented the first harbingers of a movement towards a multipolar world that would be completely different in nature than the bipolar world of international relations. However, the geriatric Soviet leadership failed to understand these changes and held fast to their bipolar vision of the world and their firmly fixed ideological blinkers, which no advisors, officials or experts were allowed to question. This led the Kremlin to interpret the United States partial scaling back of its military presence overseas following its defeat in Vietnam as a change in the balance of power in the world in favor of socialism, the increasing independence of Western Europe as increasing contradictions within the imperialist camp and the increase in the number of post-colonial conflicts in the world as a sign that new states were attracted by non-capitalist development. The Soviet Union responded by launching an unprecedented geopolitical and military-strategic expansion in the late 70s-early 80s in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and by unrestrained military build-up in all areas. This compelled the United States, China, Western Europe, Japan, the Islamic countries and local client states of the West and China in Africa and Latin America to unite in opposition to Moscow. The American historian Paul Kennedy brilliantly explained the dialectic of imperial decline on the basis of numerous historical examples, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, which President Putin called one of the greatest geopolitical tragedies of the twentieth century. However, the Soviet collapse was by no means the first such disaster of its kind. Kennedy wrote that wealth is generally necessary for maintaining military strength, and military strength is generally necessary for snatching and protecting wealth. If, however, too large a portion of the states resources is diverted from wealth creation and allocated instead to military purposes, then that is likely to lead to a weakening of national power over the longer term. In the same way, if a state overextends itself strategically by, say, the conquest of extensive territories or the waging of costly wars it runs the risk that the potential benefits from external expansion may be outweighed by the great expense of it all a dilemma which becomes acute if the nation concerned has entered a period of relative economic decline. 4 Other rival states start expanding at a faster rate, and wish in their turn to extend their influence abroad. The world has become a more competitive place, and market shares are being eroded. 5 The great powers, now in a state of relative decline, instinctively react by spending more on security and in so doing, they siphon off even more money from investment and thus only further exacerbate their fundamental dilemma. This is precisely the scenario that led the Soviet Union into a situation where its economic resources, political influence and ideological spirit were seriously undermined, and what is more, were accompanied by the economic and socio-political bankruptcy of the command economy and totalitarian system. Mikhail Gorbachev, when coming to power, realized the extent of the countrys decline

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and ended the Cold War, but he did not know how or did not manage to build a new world order based on new political thinking or on socialism with a human face. The tottering Soviet empire ' was unable to withstand the second round of dtente (after the first round in the early 70s) and the second thaw (after the first in the late 1950s) and rapidly began to crumble, despite having an army of four million men and a military arsenal that included more than 30,000 nuclear warheads, more than 2,000 strategic missiles, 60,000 tanks and almost 200 nuclear submarines (more than the rest of the world put together). The Soviet Union thus became the first victim of the multipolar system of international relations in the post-World War II period. It did not lose the Cold War, as many in the West and their imitators in Russia assert, but rather, it lost the new political game, the rules of which were being set by an emerging multipolarity.

HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE CURRENT DETERIORATION IN RELATIONS

The preceding passages do not represent mere abstract political theory but are directly linked to evaluating Russias current relations with the United States and with the West in general. Serious analysis of the concepts set forth above makes it clear that the term Cold War does not apply at all to the current exacerbation of tensions between Russia on the one side and the United States, NATO and the European Union on the other. Above all, the main component of the Cold War system bipolarity is missing. Aside from such global and transregional economic and military power centers as the United States, the European Union, Japan, Russia and China, there also emerge such regional leaders as India, the Pacifics little tigers, the ASEAN countries, Iran, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria. Moreover, the traditional boundaries of international relations are being eroded by the powerful currents of globalization and the information revolution, the rising tide of nationalism around the world and the trend of transnational economic, political and even military players coming to the forefront. A dynamic, exceptionally complex and multilevel system of international relations is taking shape, in which diverse actors can play different roles in different areas of interaction and in specific global economic, political and security issues. The relations between the United States and Russia no longer form the central axis of international politics. They are just one of the many facets of the international situation, and, for a number of the most important issues, not even among the most significant. Aside from their differences, Russia and the West also share very important common interests and face competition from other countries and from non-state players. Under such conditions, a zero-sum game is out of the question. Unlike the bipolar-era zero-sum game, todays opponents in a multipolar world can become tomorrows partners, and vice-versa. Excessively weakening ones opponent does not automatically result in gains it can also lead to a third party rapidly gaining strength and result in an even greater threat than that posed by the original opponent. Excessive strength gained by one side does not guarantee victory it unites the other power centers against the strong side and inevitably leads to losses if not checked in time. Compared to the multipolarity and the European concert of nations of the nineteenth century, todays international system is far more complex and global in scale. States and transnational players can be simultaneously rivals and partners at different levels and on different issues. However, it is the state or coalition best able to build better relations with the other power centers than they have among themselves that will maintain the most advantageous position within this system. Until recently, Russia was in just such a position and would have become a leading world power center had it not been for its economic and domestic political handicaps. Without bipolarity, the other manifestations of Cold War are also absent. Russia and the West are not on different sides of the barricades in the current international conflicts, no matter what differences they may have regarding specific decisions. In Afghanistan, they are working together to prevent a return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They are acting together through negotiations and multilateral forums on the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs and on Palestine and Nagorno-Karabakh (at times, the positions of Russia, China, the European Union and South Korea are closer even than the positions between the United States and its allies.) Differences between Russia and the West are greater on Iraq, Kosovo, Transniestria, Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Uzbekistan (as in the past on Chechnya, Tajikistan and the wars in the former Yugoslavia). Unlike the Cold War era, however, Russia and the West do not provide open military aid to the groups waging war against the other side, even if Moscow and Washington periodically accuse each other of indirect assistance to such groups. Many other conflicts that previously could have become arenas for confrontation now lie outside

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relations between the former adversaries (in Timor, Rwanda, Liberia, Sudan, Congo, Somalia, Sierra Leone and other places). As for the arms race, despite the increase in U.S. and Russian defense spending over recent years, there has been nothing even remotely resembling what went on during the Cold War era. The two sides strategic and tactical nuclear arms will be reduced by around 80 percent over 19912012 (since the conclusion of the START-1 Treaty and till the implementation of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty). The modernization of nuclear and conventional forces is proceeding extremely slowly. 6 There remain, of course, issues of concern for strategic stability, such as U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system to protect itself from isolated missile launches (plans which include deploying elements of the system in a number of European countries), U.S. future projects for developing space-based arms and plans to equip strategic delivery systems with high-precision conventional warheads. However, although mutual nuclear deterrence continues to play a part in the strategic relations between the two sides, there is nothing like the arms race that took place in the 1950s1980s. Paradoxically, the end of the Cold War has also had some negative effects, namely, the idea, originating in Washington, that with the Cold War over, there is now no need to hold talks and negotiate new arms reduction agreements, supposedly only needed between adversaries. Unfortunately, after first putting up a rather feeble resistance to this idea, Russia has now tacitly accepted it. Not a single new agreement on nuclear or conventional arms has been signed and consequently implemented since 1991. As a result, the ABM Treaty (of 19721974), the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty of 1996, which never took effect, the START-2 Treaty and the framework START-3 Treaty (1993 and 1997) have fallen victim to this irresponsible stance taken by the United States. Negotiations on the warhead counting rules and verification measures for the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (2002) and on prohibiting the production of fissile materials for military purposes (Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty) did not take place. In 2007, Russia announced that it might withdraw from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty, 1987) 7 and the Agreement on Adaptation of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty (1999). The policies of the nuclear-weapons states and the threshold states now threaten even the most important treaty of all the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. 8 True, in the 1990s, the West gave Russia valuable help in safely decommissioning and utilizing the excess of outdated weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems left over from the Cold War period (primarily through the Nunn-Lugar Program.) However, this was not enough to fundamentally change the military relations between the great powers, all the more so as it went hand in hand with a deadlock in the dialogue on bilateral and multilateral disarmament. During this unclear transitional period, when the two countries have become neither opponents nor allies, the military and strategic relations between them have stalled. Left to themselves, the armed forces on both sides ultimately returned to their customary models of military activity. For a time, attempts were made to at least try to base military training exercises on counter-terrorism or combating separatism, but as the political differences intensified, military exercises have openly reverted to the traditional scenarios of armed conflict breaking out between Russia and NATO. 9 Russia now conducts exercises on its western land borders, and NATO in the Arctic seas. 10 In reality, though they have tried to be discrete about it, the U.S. and Russian strategic forces have never abandoned nuclear strike launch training aimed at the other side; after all, no other use has yet been found for the huge quantities of sophisticated nuclear weapons that both sides retained. The final attribute of the Cold War era has been an irreconcilable ideological confrontation positioned as the motivation and justification for military and geopolitical rivalry. The end of the Cold War coincided with the collapse of the communist ideology. North Korea and Cuba are probably the only two countries left in the world that still firmly adhere to communism. Even China is undergoing far-reaching ideological transformation through its policy of developing capitalism under the auspices of the Chinese Communist Party, which itself is looking more and more like the Kuomintang. It is true that increasing nationalism and the mixture of strong-state and religious chauvinism in the U.S., a number of EU countries, and also Russia, are adding a more visible ideological tone to the political friction between the various sides, but this in the modern context does not signal a return to the kind of confrontation between Russia and the West that existed during the Cold War. The truly confrontational ideological schism today has developed between liberal-democratic values and Islamic radicalism, between North and South, and between globalism and anti-globalism. Todays Russia may not have yet been fully won over by liberal values, but it certainly is not about to join forces with radical Islam. Russia is the country that has suffered the greatest losses over the last 20 years in the conflict with Islamic extremism (the war in Afghanistan, the wars and conflicts in

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13

Chechnya, Dagestan and Tajikistan). 11 All of the tactical maneuvering notwithstanding, Russia and the West have reacted to the rise of militant Islam by moving much closer together as allies rather than remaining strategic opponents. Such are the inexorable laws of globalization and the multipolar world, no matter how negative the West may be in its attitude towards todays Russia and no matter how much Russians may currently dislike the U.S. and its allies. Mutual disenchantment with the way relations have developed over the last 15 years has reinforced a feeling of nostalgia in Russia and the U.S. for the simple two-dimensional construct of the Cold War era world. A good number of Russian theoreticians today, filling the gaps in an education dominated by the dogma of Marxism-Leninism, are now immersing themselves with a neophytes enthusiasm in the century-old ideas of Mackinder on the age-old struggle between sea and land powers and the ceaseless hostility between Western-Christian materialism and EasternOrthodox spirituality, and are eagerly sharing their newfound knowledge with others. The West also has no shortage of people ready to preach their vision of Russia as an inherently authoritarian, semiAsiatic and imperialist state. However, trying to follow these dogmas in modern politics is like trying to apply the mechanics of Newton to nuclear physics. No matter how far political awareness might lag behind global economic, technological and social life, increasing costs and failures are fast demonstrating the foolishness of pursuing a Cold War policy in a world where objective conditions have fundamentally changed.

POLITICAL

REALITY AND PERCEPTIONS

There appear to be four main reasons for the current flare-up in tensions between Russia and the United States. It is not a product of Putins speech in Munich on February 10, 2007. On the contrary, Putins speech was just a reflection, and a very late one at that, of the contradictions and claims that had been building for some time. The first reason is Russias policy of changing the rules of the game for relations between Russia and the West that were established during the 1990s, and the Wests, particularly United States, reluctance to accept these changes. Not a single Russian political party or state body is prepared now to accept the paradigm of relations of the 1990s, when Moscow willingly or unwillingly simply followed in the wake of the United States, when Russias interests were not considered and its opinion was ignored on all fronts. Never again is the slogan that has united all forces in Russia in their approach to the countrys foreign policy. However, most people in American political circles and a good number in Western Europe think the 1990s model of relations was the only proper and natural model to follow. Prominent British political scientist Laurence Freedman summed up this view most bluntly when he wrote that there is now no particular reason to classify Russia as a great power It cannot therefore expect the privileges, respect and extra sensitivity to its interests normally accorded a great power. Increasingly it lacks the clout to enforce its objections to developments it considers harmful or to take on the sort of responsibilities that can earn it international credit. 12 The United States views the current and increasingly more evident abandonment of the 1990s paradigm as an anomaly, a manifestation of Russias traditional hostility towards the West and its values, and a relapse of an imperialist, Cold War mentality, or at best as a sign that Moscow is mistaken in its evaluation of its own interests and the processes underway in the world. However, the current tensions in relations can be explained by objective reasons that are not unusual in international relations. These reasons stem from the shift in the balance of power in recent years between Russia and the West. Compared to the 1990s, Russia has been undergoing sustained economic growth and enjoyed relative social and political stability. Moscow has consolidated its power in the country, obtained large amounts of capital for domestic and foreign investment, has virtually repaid its foreign dept, sharply increased its defense spending (four-fold since 2001) and suppressed a mass armed uprising in the North Caucasus. President Putin constantly makes reference to these changes at every possible opportunity. At the same time, the U.S., the European Union, and Japan have all seen their international positions weaken somewhat, but the West hesitates to admit these objective changes, preferring to view them as temporary difficulties that have come about by chance, and seeks to continue its old policy with regard to Russia. This inevitably leads to increasing frictions. This sort of process is nothing new in history; there have been other conflicts of this nature between the U.S. and the Soviet Union in the late 1950s-early 1960s, between the Soviet Union and China at the end of the 1960s, and between the U.S. and Western Europe (in the less acute form inherent to democratic countries, of course) in the 1970s.

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The Russian political elite now feels a new surge of self-confidence and national pride, perhaps even beyond what the countrys objective economic, social and defense achievements merit. As a result, in sharp contrast to the 1990s, Moscow, no longer wanting to blindly follow the U.S. lead in resolving regional crises (in Kosovo, Palestine, Iran and North Korea), has redoubled its diplomatic efforts on all fronts and is developing or restoring ties with countries that are trying to politically challenge American domination. Russia is actively pursuing cooperation with organizations that are independent of the U.S., NATO and the EU, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Community and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Aside from competing with the U.S. on the world arms market, Russia now has no qualms about openly confronting the U.S. in some areas of military technology (countering missile defense systems), and also expects to compete in renouncing certain arms reduction treaties (the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty) and in expressing dissatisfaction with international organizations (as the U. S. has criticized the United Nations, Russia has criticized the OSCE).

LOST

OPPORTUNITIES

The second reason for friction stems from the consequences of Western policy, primarily U.S. policy, over the last 15 years. After the bipolarity of the Cold War ended, Washington had a unique historic chance to affirm the supremacy of the rule of law and the leading role of legitimate international organizations (above all the UN and OSCE), the primacy of diplomacy in conflict resolution and the exclusive selectivity and adequate legal basis for using military force for self-defense or to protect global security (under Articles 51 and 42 of the UN Charter.) Beginning in the early 1990s, the United States had a unique historic chance to lead the process of building a new multipolar world order in coordination with the worlds other centers of power, but it failed to take advantage of this opportunity. Savoring the euphoria of unexpectedly finding itself the worlds sole superpower, the United States increasingly began to substitute the rule of superior power for the rule of international law, to replace legitimate UN Security Council decisions with directives of the U.S. National Security Council, and to ignore the prerogatives of the OSCE in favor of NATO action. The starkest and most tragic expression of this policy was the military operation against Yugoslavia in 1999. After the change of administration and the shock of the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this policy was enshrined beyond question. After carrying out just, lawful and successful military operations in Afghanistan, the United States invaded Iraq (on an invented pretext and without UN authorization) and planned to go further by reformatting the entire Greater Middle East to fit its own economic, political and military interests. Empires are not interested in acting within the international system; they think they are the international system, Henry Kissinger wrote of this kind of policy. Empires have no need for a balance of power. It is in this way that the United States has pursued its foreign policy on the American continent and China in Asia for greater part of their history. 13 This was Washingtons strategic mistake after the end of the Cold War, because the world did not become unipolar. On the contrary, a new multipolar and multilevel system of international relations emerged. No matter how great its economic and military might, any country that arrogantly challenged the new system and took the road of unilateral and arbitrary power action was inevitably going to run up against the united resistance of other countries. In this sense, the United States can be seen as having taken the road described by Paul Kennedy that led to the Soviet Unions collapse. The scandal that erupted following the discovery that official U.S. agencies had deliberately provided false information in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, the grave human rights violations that occurred at the prisons of Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo, and the rigged trials and medieval executions of Iraqi leaders that took place with Washingtons obvious approval (over European protests) have badly tarnished the United States moral image throughout the world. What is surprising is that many U.S. politicians and experts, though they take domestic criticism of the administration for granted, do not seem capable of realizing that Americas image has sunk to an unprecedented low and continue using a tone of moral superiority in their dealings with the outside world (a classic example of this was Senator Liebermans remarks in Munich on February 10, 2007, when he said that the world is still unipolar, but that this is the pole of democracy and freedom.) In real political terms, the United States has now gotten itself mired in a war of occupation in Iraq with no end in sight, has undermined UN and NATO coalition policy in Afghanistan, and has tied its own hands in dealing with Iran and North Korea. Washington has provoked an unprecedented surge in anti-American feelings around the world, a new wave of international terrorism, and a proliferation

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of nuclear weapons and missile technology. As the United States becomes more deeply involved in affairs in the post-Soviet area and exacerbates its relations with Russia, it is at the same time losing influence in Western Europe, the Asian Far East, and even in its traditional backyard of Latin America. Along with the countries Washington has pronounced its enemies (the axis of evil countries of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba), countries as diverse as Germany, France, Spain, Russia, China, India, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua and many of the countries in the League of Islamic States have been nudged into the camp of international opposition by the United States unilateral power policy. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was established in 2000 as a coalition for combating Islamic extremism, has become a counterweight to American intervention in Asia. Since 2006, opposition to the Republican administration has also been on the rise in the United States itself. A period of difficulty and internal contradictions has also begun for the European Union, including the failure to adopt the European Constitution, a slowdown in economic growth rates, a worsening demographic situation, a rise in ethnic and religious conflict, energy security concerns, stagnation in the area of military integration, and a lack of clarity regarding the future expansion of the EU. In this context, whereas the United States, the European Union and NATO have all experienced degradation in their overall positions, their relations with a more active and confident Russia have additionally deteriorated as a result of the policy mistakes the West has made directly with regard to Moscow. Instead of brazenly meddling in Russias internal affairs during the 1990s, the U.S. and NATO should have tried to create as favorable a security climate as possible and helped to encourage Moscows deeper involvement in Western international military, political and economic institutions. During this period of transition, after all, Russias foreign policy centered not so much on relations with other countries as on choosing a model for the countrys economic and political development. Events took quite the opposite turn, however. Not only did the West meddle in Russias internal affairs, it also took advantage of the countrys deep state of crisis and Moscows ensuing foreign policy and military weakness to stake a claim to as many advantages as it could before Russia could again begin to stand up for its own national interests. Russia was treated as the loser of the Cold War (much the same way as Germany and Japan were treated after 1945). This outraged most of Russias new political class, who saw Russia as having won the Cold War, as it was through the end of it that the country had gained its statehood and sovereignty. Together with shock therapy and its consequences, this Western policy towards Russia was the biggest factor gradually undermining the Russian democratic parties and movements since the start of the 1990s. The United States international strategy began looking more and more like the Soviet domestic and foreign practices against which the Soviet democrats and dissidents had protested until August 1991. The Wests strategy was reflected in NATOs eastward expansion, in the efforts at undermining the CIS and the Collective Security Treaty Organization, in the imposition of unfair disarmament treaties on Russia (the first draft of START-2 with its 10-year implementation period), and in NATOs unilateral position on the Yugoslav conflicts that culminated in extensive missile strikes and bombings of Serbia and the mass exodus of Serbs from Kosovo. All of this went ahead in spite of Moscows helpless protests, taking advantage of the weaknesses and inconsistencies in Russias foreign policy. The 1999 Yugoslav conflict marked a real turning point in the Russian publics and politicians attitudes towards the United States and NATO. After this, relations steadily deteriorated, apart from the brief surge of goodwill and sympathy that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. After the Republican election victory in 2000, the United States began taking an even harder line towards Russia, and the fact that President Putin and his new U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush, took a personal liking to each other at their summit in Ljubljana did little to soften it. After the September 11 terrorist attacks, Putin, motivated by unquestionable personal sympathy, granted significant concessions to the United States, but acted at the same time to try to change relations through a significant increase in cooperation. Of course, it was in Moscows interests to crush the Taliban, but Russia could have opted to take a stand of well-intentioned neutrality (citing the feelings of Russias Muslim population and the Afghan syndrome). However, the Kremlin decided to go against the prevailing mood of the political elite and give its full and unconditional support to creating the anti-terrorist coalition, arming the Northern Alliance and supporting military operations in Afghanistan. In return, Russia got the U.S. withdrawal from the ABM Treaty (covered with a fig leaf in the form of the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty), war in Iraq (and the liquidation of Russias oil concessions there), and further NATO expansion eastwards, including former Soviet territory in the Baltic states. This was accompanied by ongoing petty haggling between the Republican Administration and

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Russia over Russias entry into the World Trade Organization, and the absurd obstinacy displayed by Congress, which refused to let go of the obsolete Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974 (imposing economic sanctions in response to Soviet obstacles to emigration of Soviet Jews). There was also an element of clear estrangement in the Wests policy towards Russia. Russia was constantly being reminded that it had no hope of ever fully integrating into Western military-political and economic organizations even in the long-term perspective. Other countries were able to join NATO and the EU en masse, while Moscow had to make do with all sorts of palliatives such as the Partnership for Peace, the Russia-NATO Council and the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with the European Union. Various pretexts were used to send Russia the message that it was not being invited to join Western organizations, not because it did not measure up to some specific universal criterion, but because of some kind of inherent incompatibility with the worlds leading democracies. After September 11, 2001, when there was a wave of solidarity with the United States and RussianU.S. military and political cooperation reached unprecedented levels, Putin spoke quite transparently about Russias desire to hold a serious discussion on the possibilities and forms of membership in NATO. Asked how Moscow viewed the second wave of NATO expansion, Putin said, We would reconsider our position on expansion, of course, if we were ourselves part of this process. 14 No reaction followed other than the standard reply issued by senior NATO officials that the organization does not invite anyone and that a country wishing to join needs to make an application (and get in the queue behind Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and other candidates.) Such was NATOs farsighted position regarding a great power that had completely freed the West from military threat from the east, at great cost to itself, and given Europe a level of security the continent had not known since the dark ages. As far as the European Unions expansion goes, Russia began by seeing it as part of the natural and justified process of European integration. However, relations took a turn for the worse when EU enlargement began to create unexpected humanitarian and military problems (such as the transit of people and military cargoes to and from Russias Kaliningrad Region), and when it became effectively tied to and synchronized with NATOs eastward expansion. In its attempts to formulate its position on cooperation with Russia, the EU could come up with nothing better in its official documents for 20032004 than to include Russia among its good neighbors, along with the countries of the southern Mediterranean (that is to say, North Africa and the Middle East), or to place it among more distant partners such as China and India. 15 Caught up in its own internal problems and in the issue of Turkeys accession, the EU has failed to come up with a substantial and attractive program for rapprochement with Russia to replace the Cooperation and Partnership Agreement, which expires in 2007. The European Union is mainly concerned with ensuring reliable supplies of Russian energy, thus delegating to Russia the role of raw materials provider for the rest of Europe. It is not surprising that Moscow eventually abandoned hope of achieving a rapid and consistent integration with the West on the basis of equality, mutual advantage and respect for each others interests, and instead started looking for more interested and less fussy partners in the south and east. The last straw was the Wests active intervention in the color revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine in support of the most anti-Russian politicians in 20042006 (which led to suspicion that the same model was also being applied in Kyrgyzstan). This was followed by the announcement of the decision to put Ukraine and Georgia on the fast track for membership in NATO, accusations of Russia using energy blackmail, and the project to deploy elements of the U.S. missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, which contradicts the spirit of both the 2002 Russian-U.S. Joint Declaration on cooperating on the development of a missile defense system and negotiations in the Russia-NATO Council on the development of a common theater missile defense system. 16 Putins speech in Munich on February 10, 2007, was a signal to the West that Russia is no longer going to seek more intensive cooperation in the absence of any signs of sincere interest on the other side. This should in no way be construed as a break in relations. Moscow will continue to work together in all areas, including at the bilateral level, with the European countries and, under acceptable conditions, with the United States. As for recognition by the West of Russias interests in the postSoviet area, Moscow no longer expects any gratitude from the U.S. and its allies for Russias help in other matters, and it will take energetic (and not just verbal) measures to counter Western policy if it contradicts Russias national interests.

THE CIS

AS AN APPLE OF DISCORD

The situation in the post-Soviet area is the third reason for the current worsening in relations between Russia and the West. The CIS has effectively split into the anti-Russian group GUAM

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(Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) and the pro-Russian Collective Security Treaty Organization (Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.) These same loyal states, minus Armenia, form the Eurasian Economic Community, the economic nucleus of the CIS, and together with China, but without Belarus and Armenia, are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. What is interesting is that this divide does not at all follow ethnic, religious or geographical lines (despite all the talk about a conflict of civilizations). The first group, GUAM, encompasses all the countries that see Russia as an actual or potential threat to their territorial integrity, and all of them, except Moldova, have applied to join NATO. The second group is composed of countries that look to Russia for help in countering external threats and/or domestic opposition, and that depend on Russian economic support (the exception is Kazakhstan, which is linked to Russia by major economic interests and a large ethnic Russian community, but which also follows well balanced policies of cooperation with the United States and China). The prospect of seeing the GUAM countries join NATO has incited Russia to take an even tougher line towards them and their problems (such as separatism and dependence on Russian energy supplies). GUAM and NATO have retaliated in turn by working even more actively against Moscow in the post-Soviet area. True, the internal political situation in Ukraine has slowed down its drift towards NATO of late, and economic conflicts with Russia have pushed Belarus closer to the GUAM countries. However, these factors have done nothing to smooth over the differences between Russia and the West. Russia made its fair share of policy mistakes in the post-Soviet area during the 1990s by trying to establish its dominance in the region through openly encouraging separatism in neighboring countries, supporting loyal but repressive regimes, making use of the military presence that remained from the Soviet years and brazenly using energy supplies as a means of blackmail. With a few rare exceptions, this policy had no concrete aims other than to revive some kind of coalition of satellite countries so as to boost Russias self-confidence and raise its international prestige. Interestingly, the West, though it worked against the CIS projects and structures, did not let this sour relations with Russia, because the rest of Moscows foreign and domestic policy suited it perfectly well. Under Putin, Russian policy towards the CIS began to change. As Russia gained in economic and financial potential and independence, it began taking a very pragmatic approach towards each individual country or sub-region. It abandoned ephemeral imperial projects in relations with its neighbors and turned its attention instead to the transit of energy exports, the acquisition of promising business assets and infrastructure, investment in natural resources exploration and production, maintaining genuinely important military bases and facilities, working together on combating new transborder threats, and taking a strong stance on humanitarian matters. This policy has not been without its mistakes and dubious moments (such as the excesses of the indiscriminate anti-Georgian campaign of autumn 2006), but it is at least a lot clearer and more predictable than the eccentric and often very aggressive policy of the 1990s. The conflicts with Ukraine and Belarus over energy prices and transit costs, which disrupted energy supplies to Europe, unleashed a wave of indignation in the West, accusations that Russia was practicing a policy of energy imperialism and blackmail, and even calls to use NATO in order to guarantee the energy security of importing countries. Moscow was perhaps heavy-handed in its tactics, especially with Ukraine, but the fact remains that the transition to world prices for energy supplies does represent the renunciation of the former imperialist policy of economic favors in return for political or military-strategic loyalty. This has been confirmed by Moscows similarly pragmatic approach to neighbors as diverse as Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia and Belarus. The price revision was not linked to political or military demands, and so there are no grounds for accusing Russia of blackmail. Russia does not have any sacred duty to provide the world with energy supplies, all the more so when Russian domestic consumption is on the rise. Relations between Russia and the West in this sector should be based solely on a market basis of mutual benefit, the economic situation and long-term commercial commitments, without any added layer of political preferences or demands on either side. In this respect, the politically motivated Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline that bypasses Russia and NATOs campaign against the energy security threat at the end of 2006 (during its summit in Riga) were big mistakes. The same goes for Moscows vision of turning Russia into an energy superpower, an idea that is being interpreted abroad as a policy of oil and gas blackmail. Russias policy of freezing the ethnic conflicts in the CIS (in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Transniestria and Nagorno-Karabakh) is being increasingly rejected by Georgia, Moldova and Azerbaijan, as well

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as by the United States and NATO. It has been subject to strong condemnation in these countries against the backdrop of Russias decisive use of armed force to suppress Chechen separatism in two past wars. Russias policy on these issues cannot be justified in every aspect, especially in the case of the first Chechen war of 19941996. Russia has often been guilty of practicing double standards (following the example of the United States and other Western countries). However, unlike NATO during the Kosovo crisis, Russia has at least not bombed Tbilisi, Chisinau and Baku in order to force them to accept the loss of part of their territory. Russia has troops and military bases and installations in all of the CIS countries except for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (NATO troops and installations are present only in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan), and their presence is regulated by intergovernmental agreements and a CIS mandate. Russia will soon shut down its remaining bases in Georgia. Russias troops are deployed as peacekeeping contingents in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transniestria against the wishes of the Georgian and Moldovan leadership and this is a constant source of tension with the neighboring countries. Under Putin, Moscows policy has focused primarily on preventing the conflicts in neighboring countries from being resolved through the use of force surely not a blameworthy objective. It would be better, of course, if Russia were working more actively to bring about a peaceful settlement to these frozen conflicts. However, Moscows policy is nonetheless not as unfair and irresponsible as the current Western policy of separating Kosovo from Serbia with all the consequences that will follow, including repercussions for the similar frozen conflicts in the CIS. It is entirely natural that Russia, like any major power, seeks to surround itself with friendly neighbors. The whole question is: how to ensure that this friendship is built. These friendly relations should be developed on the basis of a clear awareness by the public and the political elites in Russia and the neighboring countries of their common economic, political and humanitarian interests and common external and internal security objectives. A friendship built on this foundation means there is no need to worry each time there are elections, a change of leadership or a color revolution in the neighboring republics. Then no foreign funds or information centers would be able to blacken Russias image if Russia does not blacken its own image, that is. At the same time, the Kremlin needs to exercise particular tact regarding the post-Soviet republics sensitivity over everything that concerns their recently acquired independence and should make its position clear regarding the imperialist rhetoric of certain irresponsible Russian officials, politicians and experts. The United States and the European Union, for their part, should be just as tactful regarding Russias sensitivity over events in the post-Soviet area. It should not be forgotten that only 15 years ago, this was a unified state bound by centuries of common history, great victories and bitter defeats, economic, military and humanitarian ties, as well as communication links with the outside world and transparent borders stretching over thousands of kilometers. In this respect it is a good thing that Moscows current pragmatic (and sometimes even mercantile) policy is bringing specific and tangible interests and plans to the forefront that the outside world can understand and that do not go beyond the limits of accepted practice. This means that if Russia and the West maintain proper relations, there will be no reason for wholesale confrontation and relations will instead involve the usual competition and could also lead to negotiations, compromises, and cooperation.

THE WEST

AND

RUSSIAN

DEMOCRACY

The fourth main reason for the rise in tensions between Russia and the West is the way Russias domestic policy has developed since 2000. The criticism by Russian and foreign politicians, analysts and journalists of Putins administration for rolling back democratic laws and institutions is fair in many ways. However, in the context of a historic analysis, it is important to identify the clear reference points in this criticism. In comparison with most Western countries, democratic laws and institutions in Russia are underdeveloped, and real political life is very different from the formal constitutional mechanisms, procedures and laws that exist on paper. Then again, Russia started down this road only 15 years ago, while the leading Western countries have been following it for tens or hundreds of years, also making big historical zigzags and retreats at times. During the 1990s there was a lot more freedom in Russia in many respects than there is now, and there was certainly a lot more freedom than in the preceding Soviet years. However, only a comparatively narrow circle of liberal intelligentsia in the big cities was really able to appreciate this freedom. The rest of the population saw the winds of change more in the form of shock therapy, widespread impoverishment, rampant corruption, an explosion in crime and the plundering of the countrys

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national wealth. The countrys healthcare and education systems, its science and culture sectors and its defense capability all crumbled overnight (as Grigory Yavlinsky put it, the people lived through two coups, two defaults and two wars in less than a decade.) It should not be forgotten that during the democratic Yeltsin years, tanks shelled the parliament in the center of Moscow at point-blank range and no one ever bothered to count the casualties. Aviation and artillery twice leveled the Russian city of Grozny; people were tortured in filtration camps; journalists were murdered (Dmitry Kholodov, Vladislav Listyev); the generals plundered the armed forces; bureaucrats filled their pockets with foreign loans; and the oligarchs grew fat on the countrys industrial assets and natural resources. State affairs were run by a clique of relatives and bootlickers, and the presidential bodyguard service carried out raids on businessmen and made them lie face down in the snow. Official circles abroad, however, turned a blind eye to all of this, and was this not because Yeltsin and his team almost always made concessions on international issues and allowed direct foreign intervention in Russian internal affairs (even including appointments to senior government posts)? For objectivitys sake, it must be recognized that, modest though the gains may seem by some other nations standards, the majority of Russians have never enjoyed such political freedom and material prosperity as they do now, not in the 1990s, not during the preceding 75 years of communist government, and not during the centuries of tsarist rule. Yes, Russians suffer from rising prices, rampant corruption and crime and the arbitrariness of power at all levels, but all of these problems existed under Yeltsin, too, along with crushing poverty for the majority of the population. This is what explains Putins high popularity within Russia, despite all the difficulties of everyday life and peoples dissatisfaction with bureaucrats, parliamentary deputies and Russias new capitalists. This explains why most of the population supports the Kremlins policies of building a vertical executive hierarchy and managed democracy. It is not at all that Russians have an inherent yearning for authoritarian rule and state paternalism; it is simply that people in Russia have had no experience with democracy except for the chaos of the 1990s, and they prefer the current state of affairs to that kind of democracy. The main problem with managed democracy and the vertical executive hierarchy is that the current economic prosperity and political stability rest on a very fragile and impermanent foundation. The economic growth of recent years is primarily driven by record high world energy prices Russias main export, which accounts for half of its total export earnings and a third of federal budget revenue. All around the world, economies based on the export of raw materials have always given rise to authoritarian-bureaucratic political systems rather than democratic systems, with all the perennial attributes such as limited civil rights and freedoms, corruption, social stratification and reactionary political movements. At the same time, economies based on the export of raw materials do not ensure the high employment levels and budget revenue needed to resolve the immense socio-economic problems and security issues of a country as big and in many respects demanding as Russia. Moreover, high energy prices will not last forever. The Russian political and economic system that has taken shape and the interests of the new political class that cement it are therefore a real problem, but a problem above all for Russia itself and for its future development. In its criticism of Russia over democracy and human rights, the West often seems to be setting higher standards for Russia in these areas than it does for, say, China, or many of its other partners in Asia or other parts of the world. But at the same time, the West greatly underestimates the very negative attitude in Russia towards its experience in the 1990s, including the role the West played in events within and around Russia during those years. Furthermore, few in the West ever stop to think that all the great anxiety over Russias ability to satisfy the Wests energy needs and the demands on Russia to provide solid guarantees for increasing oil and gas supplies contradict the concerns over the development of Russian democracy, which is incompatible with an economy based on the export of raw materials. Moscows growing differences with the United States and Western Europe over internal political issues indirectly impel it towards rapprochement with China and other countries that do not raise such questions and are often the object of similar criticism themselves. This kind of influence of domestic policy and ideology on foreign policy is nothing new, and it has sometimes played a fateful role in Russian history. 750 years ago, Alexander Nevsky chose to confront the Catholic West for ideological reasons, and in so doing left the door open for the religiously neutral Mongol Horde to plunder the country, which it did for the next 250 years. In the 1930s, Stalin, again for ideological reasons, leaned toward developing cooperation with Nazi Germany rather than with democratic Britain and France, and that policy ended with the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941.

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ANOTHER THIRD WAY FOR

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RUSSIA?

The Wests current disappointment with Russias internal political development and the reaction to this disappointment among most of Russias political circles and public opinion mean that the integration goals discussed in the 1990s and set forth at the Russia-EU summit in St. Petersburg in 2003 will be postponed for a long time. 17 Integration is only possible between countries with a similar national culture and comparable levels of economic and political development. As far as culture goes, there are no problems. Russian culture Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky and Rakhmaninov is an inalienable part of common European culture, just as Shakespeare and Balzac, Mozart and Vivaldi are all equally at home in Russia. This is what determines which civilization a nation fundamentally belongs to. The European foundation of Russias culture has remained a constant through the centuries, continuing under the tsars and the Bolsheviks, and after them under Yeltsins democrats and Putins strong state patriots. In China, these same cultural values would be equally alien whether under the Mandarins, the Kuomintang, the Maoists or todays followers of Deng Xiaoping. They would not be accepted in Iran, either, whether under the Shah, Khomeini or Ahmadinejad. Russia has been debating its national identity for the last 200 years now, caught up in endless arguments over whether Russians are Europeans or Eurasians (the debates began with the Westernizers and the Slavophiles back in the nineteenth century.) There are probably some of both in Russia, and their share of influence on policy periodically changes. This self-identification does not depend at all on ethnic or religious background; individuals and their groups define it for themselves. The main dividing line comes through in the different interpretations of relations between the people and the state, who serves whom and what makes a great power: the freedom and prosperity of its people or the ability to subjugate and frighten others. Unlike other empires, Russia has never managed to combine the two options. Russia differs considerably today in its economic and internal political development from the worlds leading democracies. Some Russian political circles have taken these differences, given them a theoretical veneer and called it sovereign democracy. This latest concept of a third way between East and West is just the newest edition of the old theory of Eurasianism and is based on the same old mistaken methodology. The doctrine of Eurasianism places geographical location above the basic principles of a countrys socio-economic and political development. However, in todays world, geographical position may largely shape foreign policy, security and economic ties, but not necessarily the route of internal development. Turkey, for example, also straddles Europe and Asia, but there can be no question as to the countrys Asian identity. If Islamic fundamentalism does not get the upper hand in Turkey, it could follow the European path of development and become a major democracy within the European Union, though this is not very likely. If not, Turkey will join the Islamic world, but not even in that case would there be any talk of the country having a Eurasian identity. India, Japan and South Korea are located respectively in the center and at the far reaches of Asia. For all its specific national features, India is making rapid progress along the European development road and, precisely because it does not have much natural resource wealth, will become a democratic superpower of the twenty-first century. Japan and South Korea, after rising from the ruins of destructive wars, have long since joined the ranks of the leading Western economies and democracies. The United States, like Russia, was a historical offshoot of Europe and is also located geographically between Europe and Asia. This is what explains the United States significant economic, military and political interests on both continents. However, the Americans would probably feel deeply insulted if someone suggested that they are a bridge or a protective barrier between Europe and Asia. The United States is the leading independent power of European civilization, and it is its great economic and military might that gives it such immense influence throughout the Eurasian continent. The greater part of the territory of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union in the past, and the Russian Federation today, is located outside Europe, but with all respect for their unique identities, the peoples of Central Asia and the indigenous peoples of Siberia and the Russian Far East have contributed nothing to Russias culture and its economic and political system. What has had an impact was the 250 years under the Tatar-Mongol yoke. Russia emerged from this period economically backward and cut off from Europe, with a legacy of despotism, an ineffective and thieving government organization and inhuman enslavement of its subjects, justified by a messianic ideology. The Soviet authorities took these features to their extreme in the name of a communist utopia. However, all of this is the legacy of Russias complicated historical development and not its Eurasian geopolitical situation. 18 There is no reason to proclaim the countrys

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geographical location a special virtue and use it as the basis for some kind of third way between Europe and Asia. Of course, Russias geographical location does give it significant economic and security interests in both Europe and Asia. Russias future ability to make its presence and influence abroad match the scale of these interests will depend entirely on which economic and political development path it chooses to take. This also applies directly to the latest version of Eurasianism sovereign democracy, a concept which, depending on how it is interpreted, is either hollow or mistaken. Every democracy is sovereign in its own way and bears the clear imprint of specific national features. Russian democracy may in fact have more noticeable differences than, say, the differences among the democracies of the United States, France, Britain, Italy or Sweden, but it would probably not be as different as the democracies of India or Japan. All of these countries have their own particularities, but they are united by common fundamental principles for organizing the economy, the state power system and internal political life. If the sovereign in sovereign democracy is understood as indicating more significant differences, then the second part of the formula, democracy loses all meaning. The question is not whether two or seven political parties are represented in the parliament, or whether regional governors are elected or appointed. If a countrys specific nature lies in an executive power system that manipulates elections in order to ensure an obedient parliament, tax inspectors that scrutinize officials revenues in inverse proportion to the seniority of their positions, courts that deliver verdicts on orders from above, and a media where TV companies and newspapers can have their licenses revoked for insufficient political loyalty, then democracy is greatly deficient, no matter how marvelous the provisions of the countrys laws and constitution. Russias current development phase does not reflect some kind of national Eurasian special features, but rather a particular evolutionary stage that other European countries also went through. In this respect, Dmitri Trenin quite correctly wrote that Russia today ...could be reminiscent of Germany in the 1920s, with its vibrancy and intense feeling of unfair treatment by others; France in the 1940s, when it was trying to heal its traumas; or Italy in the 1960s, as far as the nexus of power, money, and crime is concerned. 19 For a full picture of modern Russias contradictory state, one would have to add its vast territory and abundant natural resources, highly educated population, extensive nuclear potential and the high international status inherited from the Soviet Union. Democratization is a process that cannot be measured by the principle yes or no, but only by the criteria of more or less and an analysis of which way the flow of change is moving. Leaving aside comparisons with the upheavals of the Yeltsin years, it can be seen that since Putin came to power, the flow of change has been towards constantly increasing the powers of the federal bureaucracy and the president (which in Russia are often mistakenly equated with the state in general, although the state is a much broader concept that encompasses all the branches and levels of power). This gives the West the dilemma of deciding what policy to take towards Russia during its lengthy, far-reaching and very contradictory transformation process. So far, the United States and many of its allies have gone from one extreme to another on this issue, from radiant hopes to bitter disappointment, from excessive involvement to complete indifference and neglect, and from burning enthusiasm to suspicion and hostility. Back in 1951, the prominent American diplomat and political thinker George Kennan prophetically foresaw the collapse of the Soviet empire and left the West a wise testament that reads as if it were written today. But when Soviet power has run its course, or when its personalities and spirit begin to change (for the ultimate outcome could be one or the other), let us not hover nervously over the people who come after, applying litmus papers daily to their political complexions to find out whether they answer to our concept of democratic. Give them time; let them be Russians; let them work out their internal problems in their own manner. The ways by which peoples advance toward dignity and enlightenment in government are things that constitute the deepest and most intimate processes of national life. 20 Kennan set out three principal conditions for building constructive relations and achieving gradual but consistent rapprochement with Russia: Russia must not be closed to the outside world; it must not enslave its labor; it must not seek to establish imperial domination in the surrounding world and perceive all outside its spheres of domination as enemies. 21 The existence of the above attributes formed the foundation of the Stalinist superpower that existed in milder form under Stalins successors until 1991, but for all Russias current problems and mistakes, these attributes are not present today. At the same time, there are political forces in Russia that would like to revive these attributes of Russian statehood in one form or another, under various slogans, and their influence depends to a great extent on the Wests policy, because external isolation,

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the feeling of living in a besieged fortress and totalitarianism have always been inextricably linked in Russia. As for the concept of sovereign democracy, it can be seen only as an enforced period of stabilization, cooling down of passions and restoration of national pride. Russia, like any country, indisputably has its own sovereign road to democracy, but the final goal making the basic universal principles of democracy a part of national life cannot be opposed to specific national features. In this respect, Russias future path is important, not in terms of abstract criteria or relations with the United States and Western Europe, but in terms of what Russia ultimately wants to become. In Russia, like in any other country, a transition to an innovative and high-tech development path is impossible without large-scale financial, technological and intellectual investment, both domestic and foreign. This requires that clear and indisputable property rights (for material assets and intellectual property) be enshrined in law. However, the observance and enforcement of laws requires independent courts, arbitration and law enforcement procedures, which is not possible without the division of powers. The division of powers implies, above all, an independent parliament, which cannot be independent without political pluralism, free elections and civil society. In other words, full-fledged democracy must develop. This will also ultimately determine Russias closest foreign partners and allies and the prospects for Russias integration into the community of most advanced countries. In this respect, a group of authors headed by Sergei Karaganov writes that, Rapprochement between Russia and the European Union and the creation of a strategic political and economic union would have clear benefits for both sides, but such a development of events is unlikely over the coming 57 years. The likelihood would grow if Russia undertook intensive economic modernization and political democratization, which would increase interest in economic rapprochement and remove some of the obstacles in the way of bringing values closer together. 22 However, the reverse link is also important, for relations with other countries, above all with the West, will hugely influence Russias internal development. The better the relations and the greater the cooperation in the fields of economics, politics, security, humanitarian questions, and culture, the more solid will be the position of democratic forces within Russia, the more the public will come to embrace democratic freedoms, and the more the authorities at every level will pay attention to observing democratic norms and procedures. This in no way implies that the West should not criticize Moscow for violating democratic principles, and Russia has the same rights, though it seldom makes use of them (except to criticize Latvia and Estonia.) However, this criticism should not flare up or fade away depending on international differences between the two sides, and it should not be arrogant and presume ones own innocence, especially in the case of the United States. Finally, if they want to demand higher economic and democratic standards from Russia, the United States and the European Union should also show the corresponding readiness to open up to Russia the organizations, institutions and spheres of activity to which they give access to each other.

THE

CHALLENGES OF MULTIPOLARITY

The answer to the question this essay raises is clear: a new Cold War in the historical sense of the term is no longer possible between Russia and the West. The explanation for this situation lies not in the subjective views and intentions of politicians, but in completely objective circumstances. The world is no longer bipolar; many conflicts lie beyond the axis of relations between the two sides; they are no longer separated by an antagonistic ideological divide; they have neither the means nor the motives for a large-scale arms race; and they have many common economic, political and security interests. The current friction between Russia and the United States and the European Union reflects tensions in individual links of the multipolar system brought about by its own dynamics a constantly changing balance of power between different power centers, a kaleidoscopic mosaic of diverse problems coming from globalization, and endless surprises from third countries now free from the former superpowers control. It is eminently clear that despite the great pressure exerted by anti-Western political circles and public feeling within Russia, the Russian leadership does not seek confrontation with the United States and the European Union, does not want to break off cooperation and is not positioning Russia as a second superpower, along with the United States. Moscow is formulating its interests above all at the regional level and only selectively declares its rights at the global level. Russia wants to be recognized as a great power in the ranks of the other great powers, but it wants this recognition to be not just in words but in deeds. Moscow demands respect for its legitimate interests and consideration for its

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views on the most important issues, even if they differ from those of the United States and its allies. When such differences arise, they should be settled through mutual compromise rather than having the U.S. force its position down Moscows throat or arrogantly imply that Moscow has a mistaken understanding of its own interests. Putins speech in Munich addresses precisely these issues, and one cannot but agree with most of its assertions, though there were a few specific points that raise objections (in particular, the possible withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty 23 and the criticism of the OSCE). However, the low probability of a new Cold War and the collapse of U.S. monopolarity (as a political doctrine, if not in reality) should not give rise to complacency. The multilevel multipolarity and interdependence that is now an objective reality offer not just benefits, but also quite a few potential complications and threats. There are three main threats potentially facing Russia in the foreseeable future. The first is that tension between Russia and NATO could set off a chain reaction of escalation that would go too far, causing great damage to both sides and to international security. If Kosovo does gain full independence from Serbia, for example (even if Russia vetoes the legitimization of this process through the United Nations), this could provoke similar processes in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transniestria, and draw Russia into armed conflict with Georgia and Moldova, which are backed by NATO. The same chain of events, but starting at the other end, could be set off by accelerating Georgias accession to NATO. Fast-track accession of Ukraine into NATO (a proposal which recently received the approval of the U.S. Congress) would risk splitting the country and setting off widespread violence, a situation in which Russia and the West would find it hard not to get involved. U.S. plans to build missile defense facilities in Central and Eastern Europe could incite Russia to withdraw from the INF Treaty and revive its medium-range missile program. The United States would respond by expanding its missile defense system in Europe and deploying its own new medium-range missiles in the region, which would cause a growing vulnerability of Russias strategic nuclear forces and raise the degree of nuclear tensions in Europe and at the global level. Unlike the bipolar world, in a multipolar system of international relations other power centers would inevitably act quickly to use this kind of confrontation between Russia and the West to their own advantage. China, for example, would take the opportunity to strengthen its positions in economic and political relations with Russia, the United States and Japan, and to increase its influence in central and south Asia and in the Persian Gulf. India, Pakistan, the ASEAN countries and some eccentric Latin American regimes would also be unlikely to miss such a chance. Without progress towards nuclear disarmament, a multipolar world is a world of an expanding nuclear club. Threshold states in various corners of the globe will hurry to reach or cross the nuclear threshold, as long as Russia and the West spend their time confronting each other and fail to work together to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. This could also lead to the global trade in nuclear materials and technology and the proliferation of missiles and missile technology spiraling out of control. Ultimately, there would be a much greater likelihood of nuclear weapons being used in some regional conflict or other. Islamic extremism and terrorism would rise and there would be even greater destabilization in Afghanistan and Central Asia, the Middle East, and North and East Africa. Western Europe, Russia, the United States and other countries would also find themselves hit by a wave of militant separatism, transborder crime and terrorism. The remaining arms control agreements (the NPT and Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty) would collapse. In a worst-case scenario, a rogue regime could launch a provocative missile strike against one or several great powers (or their space satellites) with the aim of setting off a nuclear exchange between them. The threat of a terrorist act using a nuclear device in one or several of the worlds main capitals, with disastrous consequences for modern civilization, would also become quite probable. Realizing where developments are heading, politicians in Russia and the West would most probably stop short of going to the extreme, but the damage to their interests and to international security could still be great. Russia risks more than others do. It is located between the main power centers and closer to the conflict zones and regions where the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems is taking place. It has much weaker economic potential and does not have strong allies. Its southern regions are unstable, its law enforcement agencies insufficiently effective, and it has inherited thousands of kilometers of porous border with hotbeds of conflict and powerful neighboring states close by. Rapid globalization makes the second threat less likely, but it cannot be excluded altogether. The impact of geopolitical conflict, competition over energy resources and worsening environmental

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problems could transform the multipolar system of international relations into a bipolar system once more and lead to a new Cold War with all its attributes. However, if this does happen, it is the United States and China that will most likely face off, backed by respective camps of allies. Russia would find itself in an unenviable situation if this were to happen. Moscow is unlikely to be able to turn the contradictions between others to its own advantage. Even according to the most optimistic forecasts, Russias economic potential will still be much less than that of the other power centers (3 percent of the world GDP by 2015, compared to 20 percent for the United States, 22 percent for the European Union and 17 percent for China), 24 and its geopolitical situation makes it vulnerable and leaves it with unprotected communication routes on its western, southern and eastern borders. At the same time, Russias natural resources, geo-strategic location and military technology make it a tempting morsel for opposing sides and perhaps the deciding factor as to which way the scale tips. In such a situation, Russia could end up like a grain caught between two millstones and suffer great damage in the West or the East, irrespective of the final outcome of the confrontation between the two main power centers. The third and final adverse scenario is one in which Russias reliance on exports of raw materials increases and its new ruling class proves unable or unwilling to carry out the democratic reforms needed to make the transition to an innovation-based high-technology economy. Moscow could, in this situation, start pursuing a neo-isolationist foreign policy focusing only on ensuring transit and acceptable prices for oil and gas exports and selling weapons, nuclear materials and nuclear technology to any prospective buyers. This would pave the way to socio-political instability within the country and the final collapse of its scientific, industrial and defense potential, as well as an increased dependence on world energy prices and growing imports of foodstuffs and all goods with high added value. This is not an optimistic prospect for Russia, particularly in a context where the high-technology and innovative economies of the United States and the European Union continue their integration, with Japan and South Korea joining in this process, followed by India and perhaps China (if it can make a transition to the Taiwanese political model without fatal upheavals). Rather than becoming an energy superpower, Russia would become merely an energy supplier for other countries and alliances and would cease being a player in world politics, becoming an object for others designs instead. It could lose, if not its legal sovereignty, then at least its economic and political sovereignty and control over large parts of its territory, like China in the nineteenth century.

GUIDELINES

FOR THE FUTURE

Russia has every possibility in its hands for avoiding the above scenarios. In the near future the most important task is to stop the slide towards confrontation and rivalry with the United States and NATO, even if it is limited to regional geopolitical and selective military-technical issues. Those in Russia and the West who are trying to score points through confrontation are irresponsibly turning their countries paramount national interests into trading cards in internal political games. Stopping this slide towards confrontation calls for, first of all, a series of proposals in the spirit of President Putins recent statements on bilateral and multilateral arms reduction and on strengthening the nuclear weapons non-proliferation regime. Moscows position on the Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues will be particularly important for advancing these proposals. Unlike Mikhail Gorbachevs initiatives in the 1980s, this new package of arms reduction proposals should be based not on well-intentioned utopian visions, but on radical and at the same time realistic military, economic and technical calculations backed up by an effective program for military modernization and reform. This initiative should not be put forward as in past years like the menu in a Soviet-era canteen (take it if you want it, leave it if you dont), but should be presented as the states firm demand and promoted using all available diplomatic and military-technical means of pressure an area in which it would not be amiss to learn from the Americans. 25 A strategy of retreating into a deep defensive posture cannot guarantee security in a multipolar and interdependent world that is changing ever more rapidly as a result of intensive scientific and technological progress. Second, instead of coming up with amorphous (umbrella) integration plans for the entire postSoviet area only to then retreat from them, Moscow should formulate as clearly and specifically as possible its economic, military and other interests with regard to each of the CIS countries, leaving aside all neo-imperialist idealism. However, Russia needs to fight for these interests and projects, using all the levers and advantages it has, including those offered by its foreign policy with regard to countries beyond the CIS. Non-expansion of NATO to the CIS countries should be tied to guarantees for the territorial integrity of Russias neighbors and mutually acceptable settlements for the serious problems they face settlements that also ensure the rights of ethnic minorities. After all, these countries ended

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up with their current borders as a result of the Soviet Unions dissolution and the creation of the CIS in its place. By not joining NATO and remaining in the CIS, but outside the Collective Security Treaty Organization, a number of post-Soviet countries would be able to maintain military and political neutrality and, depending on the progress they make, move towards the European Union. In the midterm, it is in Russias interests to check any attempts to move towards the emergence of a new bipolar system. With U.S. unipolarity melting fast, it is important to take timely action to refocus Russian foreign policy on combating other threats. Maintaining multipolarity requires Moscow to pursue highly flexible and energetic diplomacy and establish a clear hierarchy of priorities for each given moment. It also calls for skill in linking some issues to the resolution of other problems, a high level of bureaucratic professionalism, and close coordination of all the relevant state agencies. The international situation will clear up over the next several years: the United States will realize its limited possibilities in the world and the need to coordinate its interests with other countries; the European Union will tackle its integration, immigration and enlargement problems; and the foreign policy and military consequences of Chinas and Indias rapid economic growth and rising energy consumption will become clearer. Russia also needs the time it could gain by pursuing a policy of multiple vectors and equal distance that is, by maintaining a multipolar balance of power in the context of ongoing globalization. The current euphoria created from the newfound economic and foreign-policy independence will eventually pass, and the time will come to decide how to make constructive use of this. Superficial recipes for making the transition to an innovative economic model will be tried and proven inadequate, and the need will arise to start carrying out deeper political and legal transformation, particularly if world energy prices fall. Russia clearly still has many challenges and difficulties to overcome before it, as Valentin Kudrov writes, develops a clear and concrete development strategy, makes a definite choice in favor of globalization and Europeanization, and draws up a guiding national idea within the framework of modern civilized standards and priorities. 26 The transition from a model based on the export of raw materials to a high-technology and innovative economic model as part of the process of developing democratic institutions and rules would naturally refocus Russias integration policy as Europes biggest country and its potentially strongest economy. The future will determine the specific timing, forms and means of equal and mutually beneficial integration between Russia and the European Union. This integration would eventually result in the formation of the most powerful global power center in geopolitical, economic, military, scientific and cultural terms. This new power center would definitely remove the threat of monopolarity and arbitrariness from international relations and the global situation, as well as the danger of bipolarity and confrontation, and it would take the lead in building a new world order based on the rule of law to resolve the problems of the twenty first century.

NOTES
1 See: Yavlinsky, G. Perspektivy Rossii. Moscow: Galleya Print, 2006. pp.109141. 2 The few known examples of similarly protracted and large-scale bipolar confrontation that periodically flared up into armed conflict were the Peloponesian wars in ancient Greece, the hostility between ancient Greece and Persia, between ancient Rome and Carthage, and between Christian Europe and the Islamic caliphates during the crusades, and then the Ottoman Empire (up until the mid-seventeenth century.) 3 The Partial Test Ban Treaty, finalized in 1963, pursued mostly ecological goals. The Outer Space Treaty (1967) and the Seabed Treaty (1971) were aimed at military activities that the parties were hardly considering, since their usefulness was doubtful. 4 Kennedy, P. M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York, NY: Random House, 1987. p. XVI. 5 Kennedy, P. M. The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: economic change and military conflict from 1500 to 2000. New York, NY: Random House, 1987. p. XXIII. 6 In 2006, for example, Russia procured 6 ICBMs, 31 tanks, 120 armored vehicles, 9 planes and helicopters, and has been commissioning new ships and submarines at a rate of one every few years. This is a considerably slower rate than during the 1970s80s. In spite of its much larger defense budget, the U.S. has been concentrating its defense spending on maintenance of its armed forces and conducting military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States deploys more conventional weapons than Russia, but fewer nuclear weapons. 7 See: Arbatov, Alexei. Shag nenuzhny i opasny. NVO, N 7 (513) (March 215, 2007). pp. 12. 8 See: Yadernoye oruzhiye posle kholodnoy voyny (Nuclear Weapons after the Cold War). Ed. A. Arbatov and

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V. Dvorkin, Carnegie Moscow Center. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2006. 9 Vladykin, O. Predchustviye vtorzheniya. Moskovskiye Novosti, N 910 (1377) (03.22.2007). pp 67. 10 It is interesting to see that without political leadership, military planning can reach absurd heights. Facing off as familiar adversaries, but without the resources to wage a largescale war, Russia and NATO are now developing their military actions against each other on the basis of a local conflict, a scenario that is even more politically divorced from reality than the likelihood of a global conventional war that escalates into nuclear war. 11 Soviet casualties in Afghanistan came to around 50,000 killed and wounded, while, according to official estimates, some 45,000 Russian servicemen were killed or wounded during the two Chechen campaigns. 12 Freedman, Laurence Traditional Security, Russia and the West: The Twenty First Century Security Environment, Ed. Alexei Arbatov, Karl Kaiser, and Robert Legvold. Armonk, NY: Sharpe, 1999. p. 26. 13 Kissinger, Henry. Diplomacy. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 1994. p.21. 14 Jones, Gareth. Putin Softens Stance on NATO, Moscow Times, (October 4, 2001). p.1. 15 See: Borko, Yu. Svet i teni yevropeiskoy integratsii. Rossia v globalnoy politike. Vol. 5. N 1 (Jan. Feb. 2007). pp. 4659. 16 Looking at the issue in militarytechnical terms, U.S. interceptor missiles based in Poland would not be able to intercept Russian ICBMs or SLBMs, but the plans drew a justifiably negative reaction from Moscow as a politically unfriendly step and the first phase of potential expansion plans that would deploy interceptor missiles with different technical characteristics. 17 That summit resulted in the concept of the four common spaces: economic, humanitarian, internal and external security which went far beyond a simple policy of cooperation and opened the road to broad integration. 18 Geography has, of course, influenced Russias history by making it open to invasion from Asia. In the same way, with only narrow straits between them, Spain, Portugal and the Balkan peoples were subjugated by Arab and Ottoman conquerors, which also subsequently left them economically and politically backward. However, these countries and peoples have enough common sense not to talk about their unique third way between Europe and the Arabs/Turks and are rapidly covering lost ground and catching up with the rest of Europe. 19 Trenin, D. Russia Redefines Itself and Its Relations with the West. The Washington Quarterly. Vol. 30, 2 (March 15, 2007). 20 Kennan, George F. America and the Russian Future (1951). Foreign Affairs (Spring 1990). pp 82, 84. 21 Ibid. 22 Mir vokrug Rossii: 2017. Kontury nedalyokogo budushchego. Ed. S.A. Karaganov. Moscow (2007). p. 121. 23 See: Arbatov, Alexei. Shag nenuzhny i opasny. Nezavisimoye Voennoye Obozreniye, N 7 (513) (March 215, 2007). pp. 12. 24 See: Kudrov, V. Rossia na podyome. Rossia v globalnoy politike. Vol. 5, N1 (JanuaryFebruary 2007). pp. 191194. 25 Russias sole militarytechnical trump card is, it seems, the ground-mobile TopolM ICBM program and the project of equipping them with MIRV warheads. The U.S. is 1015 years behind Russia in this particular area. The programs slowpaced implementation and the dispersal of finances on other, very dubious projects sometimes creates the impression that Russia has resigned itself to a growing strategic gap with the United States, does not want serious negotiations and is letting its only remaining serious advantage slip from its hands. 26 Ibid, p. 194.

ABOUT

THE

CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT

FOR INTERNATIONAL

PEACE

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace is a private, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization with headquarters in Washington D.C. The Endowment was created in 1910 by prominent entrepreneur and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie to provide independent analysis on a wide array of public policy issues. Almost fifteen years ago, the Endowment launched the Carnegie Moscow Center to help develop a tradition of public policy analysis in the states of the former Soviet Union and improve relations between Russia and the United States. It thereby pioneered the idea that in todays world a think tank whose mission is to contribute to global security, stability and prosperity requires a permanent international presence and a multinational outlook at the core of its operations. In 2007, the Carnegie Endowment announced its New Vision as the first multinational and ultimately global think tank, adding operations in Beijing, Beirut and Brussels to its existing offices in Moscow and Washington. As in Moscow and Washington in the past, the defining characteristics of the global Carnegie institution will continue to be political independence, first rate scholarship combined with high level experience in government and other sectors, sustained, first-hand, expert collaboration across borders, and unrelenting focus on constructively affecting real world outcomes. There is a clear demand for such an organization in todays world, with its ever-increasing interdependence and the interlinked nature of global issues. Through research, publishing and discussions, the Endowment associates in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Beirut and Brussels shape fresh policy approaches. Their interests span geographic regions and the relations among governments, business, international organizations and civil society, focusing on the economic, political and technological forces driving global change. The Endowment uses its experience of research and discussion at the Carnegie Moscow Center as a model to develop its transformation into the first international research network. CARNEGIE ENDOWMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE 1779 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036, USA Tel.: +1 (202) 483-7600; Fax: +1 (202) 483-1840 E-mail: info@CarnegieEndowment.org http://www.carnegieendowment.org CARNEGIE MOSCOW CENTER 16/2 Tverskaya, Moscow, 125009, Russia Tel.: +7 (495) 935-8904; Fax: +7 (495) 935-8906 E-mail: info@carnegie.ru http://www.carnegie.ru

CARNEGIE MOSCOW CENTER 2007

HAS PUBLISHED

WORKING PAPERS:

Issue 1. What will Happen in Turkmenistan? Round Table of Religion, Society and Security Program held on January 23, 2007 at the Carnegie Moscow Center. Issue 2. Marrack Goulding. The United Nations: Leadership, Reforms and Peacebuilding.

2005
Issue 1. Martha Olcott. Vladimir Putin and Russias Energy Policy(in Russian). Issue 2. Civil Society: Economic and Political Approaches (in Russian). Issue 3. Civil Society and Political Processes in Regions (in Russian). Issue 4. Vladimir Milov, Ivan Selivakhin. Energy policy problems (in Russian). Issue 5. Zhao Huasheng. China, Central Asia and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (in Russian). Issue 6. Anna Bessonova. WTO Requirements and the Russian Legislation Compliance (in Russian).

2004
Issue 1. Vasily Mikheyev. The East Asian Community: The China Factor and its Implications for Russia (in Russian). Issue 2. Alexey Malashenko. How Real is the So-Called Islamic Threat? (in Russian) Issue 3. Ahmed Ahmedov, Evgenia Bessonova, Elena Grishina, Irina Denisova, Denis Nekipelov, Ivan Cherkashin. WTO Entry and the Labor Market in Russia (in Russian). Issue 4. Ksenia Yudaeva. What Are Russian Enterprises Expecting from the WTO: Survey Results (in Russian). Issue 5. Konstantin Kozlov, Denis Sokolov, Ksenia Yudaeva. Innovative Activity Among Russian Enterprises (in Russian). Issue 6. Vasily Mikheev, Vladimir Yakubovsky, Yakov Berger, Galina Belokurova. Northeast Asia: Energy Security Strategies (in Russian). Issue 7. Andrei Shleifer, Daniel Treisman. A Normal Country (in Russian). Issue 8. Anatoly Shiryaev. Concept for Reforming Military Education: Organization and Methods (in Russian). Issue 9. Impact of Russian Interest Groups on Russian Policy Toward Belarus (in Russian). Issue 10. Roy Allison. Central Asia and the South Caucasus: Regional Cooperation and the Russian Policy Factor (in Russian).