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06/14/2007
U.S.-Russian Relations
Well, I was going to take the week off, but came across a speech
by David Kramer, Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and
Eurasian Affairs, that he gave to the Baltimore Council on
Foreign Affairs and which garnered quite a bit of press in
diplomatic circles as President Bush was traveling through
Europe and attending the G-8 summit.
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[Excerpts]
Russia is no longer, as Ronald Reagan once famously said, the
Evil Empire, let’s start off with that assertion. In fact, over the
past 15-plus years, Russia has become more free than at any time
in its history.
Let me hasten to add, however, that that is an incredibly low
threshold-far too low for a great nation. Far too low for Russia’s
own aspirations to greatness, and far short of our own hopeful –
and yes, perhaps giddy and even unrealistic – expectations of 16
years ago, when the world was encouraged by the collapse of the
Soviet Union.
For Russia does give us pause; it gives pause to those who follow
its evolution with interest, like you; to those who would want to
invest there or do business with it, which probably includes many
of you as well; and to those of us who deal with it diplomatically,
like me.
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I suppose we cannot avoid the fact that differences with Russia
over the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe) reflect negative trends on human rights and democracy
inside Russia itself. We hope that the slide in these areas we
have seen for the past few years will not deepen, and in fact, will
reverse itself – optimists would point to Russia’s history of
swings of the pendulum and express hope that things will soon
begin to swing in a more positive direction. But we do no one
any favors, least of all the Russian people and even their
government, by abstaining from speaking out when necessary.
We do so, I should point out, as a friend worried about the trends
we see unfolding, not simply to wag our finger in a lecturing
way. We also do so as a matter of principle.
Suppression of genuine opposition, abridgement of the right to
protest, constriction of civil society, and the decline of media
freedom are all serious setbacks. They are inconsistent with
Russia’s professed commitment to building and preserving the
foundations of a democratic state.
The State Department has publicly protested the recent police
brutality employed to break up opposition marches in Moscow,
St. Petersburg, and Nizhny Novgorod, and just the other day in
Voronezh. The European Union also protested those actions.
Russian authorities sought to prevent the marches from taking
place at all: they denied permission to stage the events or tried to
marginalize them by changing their venues. They also harassed
and detained Russians traveling to participate in these peaceful
rallies; on the day of the events, a disproportionate police
presence wielded undue force against the protestors as well as
journalists reporting on the events.
And at the EU-Russia Summit just a couple of weeks ago,
similar efforts were directed against members of the Russian
opposition seeking to express their opinions in Samara. While
there was no crackdown at the march itself, where several
hundred people protested, organizers and journalists covering the
event faced significant harassment. This included officials
preventing “Other Russia” activist Garry Kasparov and some 20
others from flying from Moscow to Samara because they might
have been carrying “counterfeit” plane tickets.
Again such ham-fisted behavior has only managed to forge a
stronger consensus between us and our Allies. The Russian
government must simply realize that it does itself no favors when
it uses these strong-armed tactics .
And the increasing pressure on Russian journalists is likewise
troubling. Simply put, a vigorous, independent and probing
media is indispensable in a democracy. In Russia today,
unfortunately, most national broadcast media – the primary
source of news for most Russians – are either in the hands of the
government or of individuals and entities allied with the
Kremlin.
And one cannot talk about the state of journalism in Russia
without making mention of recent attacks on journalists,
including the brutal and still unsolved murders of Paul Klebnikov
and Anna Politkovskaya, among others. These brave and
talented journalists cared deeply about Russia, wanted to make it
a better place, and lost their lives because of those attributes.
The Litvinenko case in London, sadly, raises further serious
questions about Russia’s record. We believe that Litvinenko’s
murder was a horrible crime that posed a threat to many others
who might have been exposed to polonium, and we strongly
support British efforts to bring to justice those who perpetrated
this dastardly act.
That all this is happening, that Russia is regressing in these areas,
ahead of parliamentary and presidential elections, may not be
entirely coincidental. The Kremlin is bringing its full weight to
bear in shaping the environment in favor of its preferred
outcome. What is most disturbing is the apparently selective use
of the law to disadvantage a number of political parties, for
instance by precluding their registration and thus their ability to
put forth candidates.
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Because a country’s foreign policy can only reflect its internal
situation, you should not be surprised to hear that Russia’s
relations with its neighbors and with Europe remain an issue of
considerable concern. This is another area where we are pushing
back.
Here’s the problem: Moscow still tends to approach its neighbors
with a zero-sum mentality, particularly when it comes to those
countries, such as Georgia and Ukraine, which choose to pursue
closer Euro-Atlantic ties .
And to round out joint U.S.-European efforts to get Russia to
moderate its behavior toward its neighbors, we and our European
allies have spoken out against Russia’s proclivity to use energy
as a political and/or economic lever against neighbors, such as in
the case of Ukraine in 2006 or Belarus this year. In both cases,
we spoke out clearly against cutoffs of Russian energy to these
countries, and encouraged resolution of differences by
transparent, commercial means over a gradual term. Hastily
shutting down oil and/or gas flow to neighbors in the middle of
winter – and in the process, disrupting supply to other European
countries further downstream – is damaging to Russia’s
reputation as a reliable supplier of energy resources, and is not an
effective way to bolster global energy security.
We are concerned by apparently political interference with
infrastructure, as in the case of prolonged “repairs” to an oil
pipeline to Lithuania, or the closing of Russia’s only legal border
crossing with Georgia last year or alleged structural deficiencies
that restricted traffic on a bridge to Estonia this month. The
recent cyberwarfare against Estonia is additional cause for
concern. Restricting traffic to Estonia is but one example of a
heavy-handed approach toward that country and is the most
recent cause for concern about Russian behavior toward its
neighbors.
The reference to energy brings me to my last point, which is the
area in the middle, energy security.
Russia holds the world’s largest natural gas reserves; second
largest coal reserves and seventh largest oil reserves. It is the
largest exporter of natural gas, and it is tied with Saudi Arabia as
the world’s largest oil exporter. Energy is literally fuelling
Russia’s economic growth and growing Russian confidence and
assertiveness. At the same time, however, Russia’s energy
industry is plagued by decaying infrastructure and requires
significant new investment to maintain current production levels.
We are concerned about trends here. The Russian government
will have to address its decision to exert more state control over
strategic industries. Our bilateral energy dialogue was launched
with high hopes in 2003. There were some results, such as the
ConocoPhillips-Lukoil deal, the success of ExxonMobil in
Sakhalin-1 in Russia’s Far East, and the continued presence of
U.S. energy services companies in Western Siberia and the
Volga-Urals, but less than hoped for despite strong interest
shown by American companies in this area.
We continue to work with our partners to convey the message
that despite continued strong economic growth, Russia must look
to the long-term and work with far greater urgency to attract
investment into its energy sector in order to reverse production
growth stagnation.
Greater U.S. investment in this sector would be a win-win
outcome for both countries: American companies have the
capital and high technology Russia needs to exploit many of its
oil and gas fields. This is increasingly important, as Russia’s
new fields are located in remote areas, like the Arctic, Eastern
Siberia and the Far East, and many future fields will be off-shore.
Although the investment climate has improved on some fronts,
investment in energy is still a mixed bag, rife with uncertainties.
Overall, many structural improvements remain necessary –
judicial reform to strengthen rule of law, banking reform to
improve the capacity of the financial sector, accounting reform to
promote greater transparency and integration into international
business standards, improved corporate governance, and
reduction of government bureaucracy.
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Before summing up, let me mention briefly one last issue lurking
over not just our relations with Russia but also Europe’s relations
with Russia and that is Kosovo, an issue where there is not yet
full cooperation but neither is there, yet, complete disagreement.
Stability in Kosovo and elsewhere in Southeast Europe has been
a joint project among Russians, Europeans and Americans for
over a decade, and a successful one. Now the UN Security
Council must exercise its responsibility for international peace
and security, looking at the fact that the parties are irreconcilable
about Kosovo’s status and that President Ahtisaari has presented
a compelling compromise. We hope that Russia will support the
draft resolution we and the Europeans have presented to establish
international supervision of Kosovo in its transition to
independence.
We see Kosovo as sui generis – a set of circumstances not found
in any other conflict – and we also hope that Russia does not
invoke Kosovo as a basis for intervention in other places along
its borders – for that would be a most dangerous game to play.
Kosovo is an issue of utmost importance to us and to Europe; we
and our allies have troops on the ground and we host refugees
desiring to return home. The time, however, has come, to move
forward with a resolution to the final piece of the Balkan puzzle.
While we understand Russian reluctance to embrace the way
forward, we also expect Russia not to impose continued
stagnation on Kosovo. The answer to this test may be
forthcoming over the next few days.
Source: U.S. Department of State [state.gov]
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Hott Spotts will return June 21.
Brian Trumbore
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