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12/14/2006

Russia Today

As the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning saga continues and
attention remains focused on the culpability of the Kremlin, I
want to go back to a piece written for Foreign Affairs this past
summer, the July/August 2006 edition specifically, by Dmitri
Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. I
didn’t have a chance to look at Trenin’s work before but actually
it makes even more sense now than it did when first written.

Mr. Trenin penned the article at the time of the G-8 summit in St.
Petersburg. Recall then that the focus was to be on energy and a
“strategic partnership” between Moscow and the West. But as
opposed to those first days of the Bush administration in 2001
when President Bush peered into the soul of his counterpart
Vladimir Putin and liked what he saw, by the spring of 2006 the
U.S.-Russian relationship had turned frosty. In a May 4 speech
in Lithuania, for example, Vice President Cheney accused the
Kremlin of “unfairly restricting citizens’ rights” and using its
energy resources as “tools of intimidation and blackmail.”

Dmitri Trenin observed:

“Until recently, Russia saw itself as Pluto in the Western solar
system, very far from the center but still fundamentally a part of
it. Now it has left that orbit entirely: Russia’s leaders have given
up on becoming part of the West and have started creating their
own Moscow-centered system.

“The Kremlin’s new approach to foreign policy assumes that as a
big country, Russia is essentially friendless; no great power
wants a strong Russia, which would be a formidable competitor,
and many want a weak Russia that they could exploit and
manipulate. Accordingly, Russia has a choice between accepting
subservience and reasserting its status as a great power, thereby
claiming its rightful place in the world alongside the United
States and China rather than settling for the company of Brazil
and India.”

Trenin talks of how the West has mismanaged the post-Cold War
era.

“Armed with nuclear weapons, its great-power mentality shaken
but unbroken, and just too big, Russia would be granted
privileged treatment but no real prospect of membership in either
NATO or the EU. The door to the West would officially remain
open, but the idea of Russia’s actually entering through it
remained unthinkable. The hope was that Russia would
gradually transform itself, with Western assistance, into a
democratic polity and a market economy. In the meantime, what
was important was that Russia would pursue a generally pro-
Western foreign policy.”

But Trenin says the “project was stillborn from the beginning.”
Former Warsaw Pact countries eagerly came into the fold, but
Russia was kept at arm’s length. Various organizations such as
the Council of Europe and the NATO-Russia Council were side
shows. Security treaties such as the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe have been ignored by Moscow. 9/11,
however, was to have changed the relationships.

Dmitri Trenin:

“After 9/11, Putin took the opportunity to offer the White House
a deal. Russia was prepared to trade acceptance of U.S. global
leadership for the United States’ recognition of its role as a major
ally, endowed with a special (that is, hegemonic) responsibility
for the former Soviet space. That sweeping offer, obviously
made from a position of weakness, was rejected by Washington,
which was only prepared to discuss with Moscow the ‘rules of
the road’ in the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS).”

Then Moscow aligned itself with the “coalition of the unwilling”
at the time of the war in Iraq. This was Putin’s way of joining
the major European powers in opposing the invasion and creating
a Russo-German-French axis to balance out Washington and
London. But this didn’t work out for Russia either.

“Instead,” Trenin writes, “transatlantic and European institutions
continued to enlarge to the east, taking in the remaining former
Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
countries and the Baltic states. With the entry of Poland and the
Baltics into the EU, the EU’s overall approach became even
more alarming for Moscow.”

And then the United States and Europe began promoting regime
change in Ukraine and Georgia, or in the CIS itself. Moscow’s
relations were already souring with both Europe and the U.S.,
then, in the wake of Beslan, “the self-confidence of the Putin
government hit an all-time low.”

Dmitri Trenin:

“Astonishingly, the Kremlin bounced back – and very quickly.
Lessons were learned, new resources mobilized, and morale
restored, all helped along mightily by high oil and gas prices. At
first, Moscow acted cautiously, still somewhat unsure of itself. It
joined Beijing in calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. military
from Central Asia. Then, toward the end of 2005, it boldly
embraced Uzbekistan as a formal ally, and the year ended with a
dispute with Ukraine over gas supplies. The Kremlin did not
hesitate to take on the post-Soviet republics’ ‘beacon of
democracy.’

“In the past year, Russia has begun acting like the great power it
was in tsarist times, (including welcoming) Hamas leaders to
Moscow after the United States and the EU declared that they
would not talk to them and offered financial support to the
Palestinians even as the Americans and the Europeans were
cutting off or suspending theirs. Russia has squarely rejected
placing Iran under sanctions for its uranium-enrichment activities
and has declared that its nuclear energy cooperation and arms
trade with Tehran will continue and that the Russian armed
forces would stay neutral should the United States decide to
attack Iran.”

These days Russia recognizes the waning influence of the U.S.,
while the EU is an economic unit, not a military one. As for
China, Moscow admires its progress and, though fearful because
of past ‘issues,’ is cooperating closely with Beijing.

Dmitri Trenin:

“In the late nineteenth century, Russia’s success was said to rest
on its army and its navy; today, its success rests on its oil and
gas. Energy is a key resource that should be exploited while
prices are high, but it is also an effective political weapon,
although one to be handled with care.”

Of course instead Putin and Co. have come off like bullies in
their handling of Ukraine and Georgia as state-controlled
Gazprom exercised its muscle on the natural gas front.

Dmitri Trenin:

“By and large, however, Russian leaders do not care much about
acceptance by the West; even the Soviet Union worried more
about its image. Officials in Moscow privately enjoy Senator
John McCain’s thunderous statements about kicking Russia out
of the G-8 because they know it is not going to happen and they
take pleasure in the supposed impotence of serious adversaries.
Public relations and lobbying are simply not high on the
Kremlin’s agenda. GR – government relations – is considered
more important than PR.”

Trenin concludes:

“Tension will culminate in 2008, the year of the Russian and
U.S. presidential elections. Supreme power will likely be
transferred from the current incumbent to another member of the
ruling circle in Moscow, and this anointment will be legitimized
in a national election. [There are other scenarios, of course –
ranging from Putin’s running for a third time to a union with
Belarus – but they seem less probable at the moment.] Thus, the
real question will be not about the Russian election but about the
reaction to that election in the West, and above all in the United
States .

“With U.S.-Russian relations at their lowest point – and the
Kremlin at its most confident – since 1991, Washington must
recognize that frustrated Russia-bashing is futile. It must
understand that positive change in Russia can only come from
within and that economic realities, rather than democratic ideals,
will be the vehicle for that change. And most important, as
president and CEO of the international system, the United States
must do everything it can to ensure that the system does not once
again succumb to dangerous and destabilizing great-power
rivalry.”

Hott Spotts will return Dec. 28.


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Hot Spots

12/14/2006

Russia Today

As the Alexander Litvinenko poisoning saga continues and
attention remains focused on the culpability of the Kremlin, I
want to go back to a piece written for Foreign Affairs this past
summer, the July/August 2006 edition specifically, by Dmitri
Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center. I
didn’t have a chance to look at Trenin’s work before but actually
it makes even more sense now than it did when first written.

Mr. Trenin penned the article at the time of the G-8 summit in St.
Petersburg. Recall then that the focus was to be on energy and a
“strategic partnership” between Moscow and the West. But as
opposed to those first days of the Bush administration in 2001
when President Bush peered into the soul of his counterpart
Vladimir Putin and liked what he saw, by the spring of 2006 the
U.S.-Russian relationship had turned frosty. In a May 4 speech
in Lithuania, for example, Vice President Cheney accused the
Kremlin of “unfairly restricting citizens’ rights” and using its
energy resources as “tools of intimidation and blackmail.”

Dmitri Trenin observed:

“Until recently, Russia saw itself as Pluto in the Western solar
system, very far from the center but still fundamentally a part of
it. Now it has left that orbit entirely: Russia’s leaders have given
up on becoming part of the West and have started creating their
own Moscow-centered system.

“The Kremlin’s new approach to foreign policy assumes that as a
big country, Russia is essentially friendless; no great power
wants a strong Russia, which would be a formidable competitor,
and many want a weak Russia that they could exploit and
manipulate. Accordingly, Russia has a choice between accepting
subservience and reasserting its status as a great power, thereby
claiming its rightful place in the world alongside the United
States and China rather than settling for the company of Brazil
and India.”

Trenin talks of how the West has mismanaged the post-Cold War
era.

“Armed with nuclear weapons, its great-power mentality shaken
but unbroken, and just too big, Russia would be granted
privileged treatment but no real prospect of membership in either
NATO or the EU. The door to the West would officially remain
open, but the idea of Russia’s actually entering through it
remained unthinkable. The hope was that Russia would
gradually transform itself, with Western assistance, into a
democratic polity and a market economy. In the meantime, what
was important was that Russia would pursue a generally pro-
Western foreign policy.”

But Trenin says the “project was stillborn from the beginning.”
Former Warsaw Pact countries eagerly came into the fold, but
Russia was kept at arm’s length. Various organizations such as
the Council of Europe and the NATO-Russia Council were side
shows. Security treaties such as the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe have been ignored by Moscow. 9/11,
however, was to have changed the relationships.

Dmitri Trenin:

“After 9/11, Putin took the opportunity to offer the White House
a deal. Russia was prepared to trade acceptance of U.S. global
leadership for the United States’ recognition of its role as a major
ally, endowed with a special (that is, hegemonic) responsibility
for the former Soviet space. That sweeping offer, obviously
made from a position of weakness, was rejected by Washington,
which was only prepared to discuss with Moscow the ‘rules of
the road’ in the post-Soviet Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS).”

Then Moscow aligned itself with the “coalition of the unwilling”
at the time of the war in Iraq. This was Putin’s way of joining
the major European powers in opposing the invasion and creating
a Russo-German-French axis to balance out Washington and
London. But this didn’t work out for Russia either.

“Instead,” Trenin writes, “transatlantic and European institutions
continued to enlarge to the east, taking in the remaining former
Warsaw Pact and Council for Mutual Economic Assistance
countries and the Baltic states. With the entry of Poland and the
Baltics into the EU, the EU’s overall approach became even
more alarming for Moscow.”

And then the United States and Europe began promoting regime
change in Ukraine and Georgia, or in the CIS itself. Moscow’s
relations were already souring with both Europe and the U.S.,
then, in the wake of Beslan, “the self-confidence of the Putin
government hit an all-time low.”

Dmitri Trenin:

“Astonishingly, the Kremlin bounced back – and very quickly.
Lessons were learned, new resources mobilized, and morale
restored, all helped along mightily by high oil and gas prices. At
first, Moscow acted cautiously, still somewhat unsure of itself. It
joined Beijing in calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. military
from Central Asia. Then, toward the end of 2005, it boldly
embraced Uzbekistan as a formal ally, and the year ended with a
dispute with Ukraine over gas supplies. The Kremlin did not
hesitate to take on the post-Soviet republics’ ‘beacon of
democracy.’

“In the past year, Russia has begun acting like the great power it
was in tsarist times, (including welcoming) Hamas leaders to
Moscow after the United States and the EU declared that they
would not talk to them and offered financial support to the
Palestinians even as the Americans and the Europeans were
cutting off or suspending theirs. Russia has squarely rejected
placing Iran under sanctions for its uranium-enrichment activities
and has declared that its nuclear energy cooperation and arms
trade with Tehran will continue and that the Russian armed
forces would stay neutral should the United States decide to
attack Iran.”

These days Russia recognizes the waning influence of the U.S.,
while the EU is an economic unit, not a military one. As for
China, Moscow admires its progress and, though fearful because
of past ‘issues,’ is cooperating closely with Beijing.

Dmitri Trenin:

“In the late nineteenth century, Russia’s success was said to rest
on its army and its navy; today, its success rests on its oil and
gas. Energy is a key resource that should be exploited while
prices are high, but it is also an effective political weapon,
although one to be handled with care.”

Of course instead Putin and Co. have come off like bullies in
their handling of Ukraine and Georgia as state-controlled
Gazprom exercised its muscle on the natural gas front.

Dmitri Trenin:

“By and large, however, Russian leaders do not care much about
acceptance by the West; even the Soviet Union worried more
about its image. Officials in Moscow privately enjoy Senator
John McCain’s thunderous statements about kicking Russia out
of the G-8 because they know it is not going to happen and they
take pleasure in the supposed impotence of serious adversaries.
Public relations and lobbying are simply not high on the
Kremlin’s agenda. GR – government relations – is considered
more important than PR.”

Trenin concludes:

“Tension will culminate in 2008, the year of the Russian and
U.S. presidential elections. Supreme power will likely be
transferred from the current incumbent to another member of the
ruling circle in Moscow, and this anointment will be legitimized
in a national election. [There are other scenarios, of course –
ranging from Putin’s running for a third time to a union with
Belarus – but they seem less probable at the moment.] Thus, the
real question will be not about the Russian election but about the
reaction to that election in the West, and above all in the United
States .

“With U.S.-Russian relations at their lowest point – and the
Kremlin at its most confident – since 1991, Washington must
recognize that frustrated Russia-bashing is futile. It must
understand that positive change in Russia can only come from
within and that economic realities, rather than democratic ideals,
will be the vehicle for that change. And most important, as
president and CEO of the international system, the United States
must do everything it can to ensure that the system does not once
again succumb to dangerous and destabilizing great-power
rivalry.”

Hott Spotts will return Dec. 28.