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WORKING PAPERS 3 2007

ALEXEI ARBATOV

MOSCOW AND MUNICH:

A NEW FRAMEWORKFOR RUSSIAN DOMESTICAND

FOREIGN POLICIES

CARNEGIE MOSCOW CENTER MOSCOW


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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 CenterRussia,125009 Moscow, Tverskaya Ul., 6/2.Tel: +7 (495) 935-8904Fax: +7 (495) 935-8906E-mail: [email protected]://www.carnegie.ruElectronic 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 andEurasia domestic and foreign policy. The series includes intermediate results of research or the arti-cles 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 theviews 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.

ABOUTTHE 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 Economyand 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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3WORKING PAPERS 3 2007

CONTENTSHow effective is the vertical executive hierarchy? ...........................................................................4

Who sets the national priorities and how? ........................................................................................... 5Corruption Munchausens Syndrome ...............................................................................................6Can the model be changed? ..................................................................................................................7The Cold War as a historical phenomenon .........................................................................................8

A historical perspective on the current deterioration in relations ................................................... 11Political reality and perceptions ..........................................................................................................13Lost opportunities ................................................................................................................................14The CIS as an apple of discord............................................................................................................16The West and Russian democracy .......................................................................................................18

Yet another third way for Russia? ..................................................................................................... 20The challenges of multipolarity ..........................................................................................................22Guidelines 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 tediousparty and trade union meetings to express approval and support, but in todays Russia, it only takesa couple of days before the public and the media turn their attention to other matters. Such was thecase with President Vladimir Putins big press conference on February 1, 2007. This shows just howmuch 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 ashame as most or all of the presidents responses really did seem to be impromptu and gave a moredirect picture of the leaderships approach to policy than is generally the case with official speechesthat have been checked and approved by various aides and officials.

Shortly after this press conference took place, attention shifted to Putins speech in Munich onMarch 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 reactedto Putins words with unexpected vigor and hostility, provoking an equally hostile counter-reactionfrom 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 irrevocablyrelegated 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 UnitedStates, 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 ofthe world.

HOWEFFECTIVEISTHE VERTICALEXECUTIVEHIERARCHY?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 swift-ness 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 entirelyconvincing, 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 market-based 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 theCzech Republic and other issues.

But how these sound ideas and policies are to be implemented and put into practice by the statemachinery (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 thathave joined with big business clans to establish their own material and bureaucratic interests. In thisrespect, even the president himself could not resist making a sarcastic remark. Although he was refer-ring to the draft of a particular law, the implications went much further: The Government, Putinsaid, extends just as deeply beneath the surface as do our oil and gas reserves, and sometimes at suchdepths things do indeed get lost.

Indeed, Russias swollen federal bureaucracy has no counterbalance in the form of strong legis-

lative 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 theCommunist Party organization, has now become a self-sufficient force that freely and imperceptiblyreplaces the goals of the nation with its own corporate interests and submits to the will of higher politi-cal 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, dissolvethe Duma and the regional bodies of power, or bring even the richest oligarch to heel. However, hecannot remove this entire new class that is the Russian post-Communist nomenklatura, the fruit ofa full-fledged state-monopolized capitalism, and he cannot compel it to act contrary to its own cor-porate interests. All of the other institutions of democratic government and civil society that mighthave counter-balanced the bureaucratic machine and given the president greater room to maneuverhave 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 manyurgent issues are not being resolved, but are only patched up somewhat from year to year.


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WHOSETSTHENATIONALPRIORITIESANDHOW?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 normalrather than sovereign type of democracy (even taking into account all the specific features of eachindividual democracy), national ideas are primarily formulated by the major political parties, thethink tanks that serve them, and the media. During elections, these programs are examined by theruling circles, passed or failed by voters, and, if successful, enable the political parties to install theirrepresentatives into the bodies of power and to control the state bureaucracys implementation of theobjectives that have been set. Of course, this system does not always work smoothly - one needs only tolook at the current problems in the United States - but it does make it possible to get timely feedbackon 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 powerand then uses its administrative resources to ensure that these parties will gain majorities at every levelof legislative assembly, with federal and regional officials hastening to join their ranks in voluntarycompulsion. Clearly, such parties cannot and do not pursue any independent political programs andare unable to control the executive. On the contrary, the bureaucrats use the parties of power to con-trol 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 competentand honest members of legislative assemblies try to operate differently, the system works against thembecause the success of the parties of power depends not on voters, but on federal or local executivebosses. These parties positions fluctuate in accordance with whatever line the executive takes (thecases of the law on citizenship and on the replacement of benefits with cash payments are just two ofthe 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 notdefined from above, but rather by the particular social groups the party hopes to appeal to in electionsand whose interests it defends when in power. In this respect, Putins response when asked about therole of and the differences between the United Russia and A Just Russia parties seemed less thanconvincing, 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 telephonein 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 andcooperation between the different branches of power, it is in fact detached from society and fromreal public and political life, and the people, who are unable to find adequate forms of legitimatepolitical expression through elections and the legislative assemblies, take instead to the streets inspontaneous protest, primarily over the unresolved problems of corruption, crime and interethnicfriction. These feelings of protest immediately become fodder for manipulation by political extrem-ists, 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, theremaining parties either find themselves excluded from the parliaments altogether through the useof administrative resources and restrictive new electoral laws, or they resort to calling on the peopleto 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 atthe press conference on February 1, 2007, while describing how one particularly important issue wasresolved: We got together probably fifteen or so times while drafting the demographic program, herecalled, and in the end there we were down to just two or three unresolved differences between thestate agencies, but then they said to me, We cant sort out these differences ourselves we need tomeet with you. So I said, Come and see me then.

As extensive experience has shown, compromises made between different state agencies in anycountry have always served only to reduce the various bureaucratic interests to their lowest commondenominator (these interests being staff expansions, budget increases and greater autonomy, as wellas take-overs of adjacent agencies.) Rather than serving the real needs of the people, these compro-

mises merely reflect the respective weights and influences of the different state organizations andofficials and the degree of access they have to the person at the top. Such agreements preclude theuse 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 otherareas, the real initiative has always come from outside, from influential politicians, independentspecialists and respected public figures. They have been implemented only when their authors haveattained 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 constructionand agricultural development.) But what principles were used to decide their funding levels and theoptimum means of implementation, and what steps are being taken at ministerial and regional levelsto ensure that the money is being used for its allotted purpose? Normally, this would all be part of thefunctions of the legislative authorities, social organizations and, if necessary, the judiciary. However, inreality, their role, as far as can be judged, is close to nonexistent. The same applies to Russias three topnational priorities as formulated by Medvedev in Davos: diversifying the economy; creating a moderneconomic infrastructure; and investing in human resources. The concept is wonderful, but it is not atall reflected in either the 2007 federal budget or in the three-year budget plan, where state administra-tion 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 drawnup by others rather than the formation of national goals and priorities. If the executive branch swellsto the point where it crushes everything else, the senior political leadership ultimately becomes itsprisoner rather than its master. Whatever its deficiencies, the bureaucracy has consummate skill inthe art of political maneuvering and knows how to channel the leaders decisions in what it considersthe right direction and distract or isolate him from undesirable alternatives. Only the ruthless ter-ror of a Stalin or Hitler has managed to keep the bureaucracy in check, but then the entire countrybecomes hostage to the arbitrary will of a single man and his favorites of the moment, which can leadto national disaster.

Many of the greatest problems that Russia cannot resolve effectively have their roots in this unfor-tunate 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 housingand municipal services sector, the growing scientific and technological gap with the worlds mostadvanced countries, the crisis in education, healthcare and culture, and the situation in the defenseindustry. This situation is further exacerbated by the festering sore of corruption, which eats away atthe very foundations of the state and society, sucking the substance out of all well-intentioned laws,initiatives and projects and perverting them.

CORRUPTION MUNCHAUSENS SYNDROMEThe 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 ofthe system, the entirely natural result produced by combining an immature market economy what ismore, 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 privilegesavailable to the nomenklatura (modest by todays standards) privileges such as the possibilityof 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 gener-ated by privatization or the state-monopolized economy.

Not encountering any checks and balances, the modern bureaucracy swells and swells as it attemptsto extend its hold over society and expand its activities through a tangle of all-encompassing laws, by-laws and regulations. The bureaucrats make everyones lives miserable, from the oligarchs to retiredgrandmothers. However, this is where the simpler, more informal means of resolving problemscome in buying a solution through bribes of all forms and sizes, from a bottle of cognac to millionsof dollars paid to get deals done.

Power is converted into money at every level, and money plus corporate loyalty means even greaterpower. 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 victimto 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 thecontinuity of the state power system and about the fight against corruption (as with the recent calls tokeep 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 some-thing 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 thegovernment that has become even more fierce as the presidential elections approach, then yes, con-solidation 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 withthem their partys action plan and a staff loyal to their party and able to fill at least a hundred or sosenior 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 strongopposition and an ever-vigilant media.

Contradictions between the various groups exist within the administration of any country, but itis unacceptable when these internal struggles begin to affect fundamental development issues andeven the very foundations of a great state. If the executive branch is formed as a compromise amongthe 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 whenthe rivalry is fueled by huge sums of money and when lobbyists make their appeals not to a weak andservile parliament, but directly to the ministries and agencies that make the decisions.

However, continued consolidation could also perhaps mean an even greater subordination of theother branches and levels of state power to the executive system through such methods as the crea-tion of parties of power that are nothing more than Siamese twins. Such formulations are difficult toaccept. The political leadership, not to mention the public, would entirely lose control of the resultingmonolith, and this would inevitably have grave consequences for the country. The biggest problemtoday is not how to further consolidate the vertical executive hierarchy, but how to effectively controland 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 (suchas the State Council and the Public Council) are inadequate to the task, just as Baron Munchausen wasunable 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 economyand non-totalitarian political system. There is no point for Russia to reinvent the wheel (whether itscalled sovereign democracy or something else.) This solution involves establishing a reasonableand balanced division of powers, which is the only way to create an independent judiciary, arbitrationbodies and electoral commissions. This solution requires that fair and honest elections take place sothat the legislative authorities, even if their rights are limited by the constitution, adequately reflectpublic interests and are able to manage and restrain the bureaucracy. This solution also calls for theregular replacement of senior officials and all-round development of free media and law-abidingpublic organizations.

Of course, we do not live in an ideal world and we are beginning not with a clean slate, but with thedifficult 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 graduallyand systematically nurtured, without upsetting social stability, as prosperity increases and the publicgrows more aware and accepting of the principles of political tolerance, responsibility and respect forthe law and for human dignity. However, the main thrust of overall political development is of greatsignificance, and in this respect the proposed continuing consolidation of the state power systemraises 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 aboutat the press conference on February 1, will not be enough to resolve the problem. It is not surprisingthat all of the countrys most pressing challenges are addressed by one single approach. After all, theyall derive from a single big problem: the stranglehold that the state-monopoly system has on politicsand the economy in Russia.

CANTHEMODELBECHANGED?A change of model would involve diversifying the economy and making a transition from an econ-

omy 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 doesnot depend on oil and gas prices. Administrative reorganization and personnel reshuffles are notenough to bring about this change. The experience of the defense industry, which is geared not to theneeds of market consumers, but to domestic defense procurement orders and the highly politicizedcompetition 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 allto thoroughly overhaul the countrys legislation and transform the current informal system of politicalrelations that is prevalent throughout all of the structures of authority. What is needed are clearly andfirmly enshrined property rights, which only a clear division of power can guarantee, an independ-ent and objective judiciary and a system of arbitration and law enforcement. What is also needed aretransparent and law-based relations between the state authorities and business, antitrust legislationand restrictions on natural monopolies, 1 and a modern and open banking, insurance and mortgageinfrastructure (which Dmitry Medvedev has correctly identified as a national priority). Also neededare 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 thehigh-technology sectors, and it will not be possible to sustain high rates of economic growth over thelong 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 countrywith low-quality and high-cost goods for which there is no demand. The acquisition and export ofraw materials and the banking sector that services them would remain the engine of the Russianeconomy, but an engine with all the efficiency of an old steam locomotive. An energy superpower islike hot ice: no such superpower has ever existed or will exist. There are only countries supplyingthe raw materials that fuel the industrially and technologically advanced powers and coalitions: theUnited 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 theirpower through the export of raw materials, and there is no special Russian road to follow in thisrespect.

There is good reason to be proud of the economic recovery that Russia has undergone over recentyears, but it should not be forgotten that Russias GDP is still only twice the size of the U.S. defensebudget (and, as Putin has noted on a number of occasions, the Russian defense budget is 25 timessmaller.) However, this does not mean that Russia should pursue the goal of doubling its GDP at anyprice, for if this objective is attained at the cost of increasing the bias toward the export of raw mate-rials in the economy, the negative consequences for the country could be similar in impact to whathappened 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 sectorof the economy has been much more modest (with growth of around 4 percent a year.) However, itis precisely these high-technology sectors, including small and medium businesses, that can provideplentiful jobs for the population, reduce the gap between rich and poor, encourage scientific andtechnological progress (domestically, rather than for export), give the country a modern and power-ful defense sector, boost exports of goods with a high added value and free Russia from the shacklesof foreign raw materials prices.

In this respect, Russias domestic and foreign policy are closely interconnected and markedly influ-

ence (sometimes even pressure) each other. This is why the current debate on the possibility of a newCold War has such important implications for the countrys future prospects.

THE COLD WARASAHISTORICALPHENOMENONGiven that Cold War is a journalistic rather than a scientific term, it can be interpreted in vari-

ous ways. It is often used to describe any heightened tension between states, but this interpretationdoes not indicate any starting point from which the rise in tension can be measured and its probableconsequences and dangers assessed.

A more justifiable approach would be to define the concept of Cold War based on the historicalperiod that gave rise to the term in the first place. The Cold War was the name given to a particularstate of international relations that lasted for almost 40 years from the end of the 1940s to the endof the 1980s. The history of those decades abounds with examples of how the two competing coali-

tions of states played out their rivalry on the economic, military and ideological fronts. However, theuniqueness of the Cold War lay in several specific features of the system of international relations itgave birth to, and these specific features can be used now as criteria for evaluating the current situa-tion and its future development.


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First, the main parameter of the Cold War world was a clearly defined bipolar structure in inter-national 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 ofinfluence in Europe and Asia in the 1950s and extended them into Latin America and Africa in the1960s 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. Thisbipolar structure turned the entire world into an arena in which the two superpowers played out theirtense 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 sidesloss. All other countries were either allies (real or potential), or adversaries. It was extremely rare fora 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 againstthe other, staking the global balance of power between the camps and their respective chances ofachieving final victory.

Second, this situation led directly to another of the Cold Wars distinguishing features, namelythat in practically any local or regional conflict, the superpowers found themselves on opposite sidesof the barricades and essentially fought each other through their prot'g's 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 ofAfrica, Angola, Mozambique, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Third, this combination of circumstances meant that all the classic conditions were in place forpotentially 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 thenuclear arms stockpiles the opposing sides had built up. These nuclear arms ensured that the conse-quences of war would be so devastating that they would outweigh the anticipated fruits of victory, andindeed, would leave the whole concept of victory meaningless.

Rather than engaging directly in a military conflict, which they feared, the superpowers and theirallies indulged in a surrogate of big war rivaling each other in their intensive preparations for theday when such a conflict would come. Journalists came up with a name for this new form of competi-tion, too: the arms race. This arms race unprecedented in its scale, cost and intensity was thethird distinguishing feature of the Cold War. The two sides deployed their armed forces, arms andmilitary installations on all the worlds continents and oceans, but the greatest concentration was inCentral 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: oneintercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) a day on average, and one strategic nuclear-armed submarinea month. During other periods, thousands of nuclear warheads were being deployed every year. Theexpansion and modernization of conventional arms was no less impressive, especially during the 1960sand the early 1980s in the NATO countries, and in the 1970s80s in the Warsaw Pact countries. Eachside 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 inrelentless ideological confrontation, demonizing each other and ascribing to each other all mannerof evil conspiracies and aggressive intentions. This implicitly did away with the need to try to see theother sides point of view, take its interests into account, and observe moral and legal norms regardingit. In some cases, ideological confrontation pushed the superpowers and their allies into interveningin the affairs of various parts of the world, and in other cases it served as justification for geopoliticalexpansion and for economic and military goals.

History had known other periods of fierce ideological confrontation (the crusades, religious andcivil 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 militaryconfrontation. Political tension and wars between states had been more the rule than the exception inhistory, 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 longas the war continued. Such was the case with the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic wars and the FirstWorld War. During the Second World War, the bipolarity really only emerged two years after the warbegan 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 unique40-year historical period in the second half of the twentieth century. Ideological opposition and thearms race (fuelled by scientific and technological progress) were secondary attributes, although theydid 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 endof 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 ofChinas emergence as an independent power center and the conflict between China and the SovietUnion (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 furtherdiluted by Western Europes growing economic strength and political activeness (Willy Brandts newOstpolitik, 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 d'tente

between the Soviet Union and the West began in the early 1970s. For the first time, serious nucleararms reduction talks took place between the two superpowers. 3 Negotiations were held on NATOand 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 thedoctrines of Marxism-Leninism, the ideological confrontation between East and West cooled downsomewhat (as reflected in the Soviet doctrine of peaceful coexistence and the Western concept ofconvergence).

These new shifts in direction represented the first harbingers of a movement towards a multipolarworld 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 theirbipolar vision of the world and their firmly fixed ideological blinkers, which no advisors, officials orexperts were allowed to question. This led the Kremlin to interpret the United States partial scalingback of its military presence overseas following its defeat in Vietnam as a change in the balance ofpower in the world in favor of socialism, the increasing independence of Western Europe as increas-ing contradictions within the imperialist camp and the increase in the number of post-colonial con-flicts 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-strategicexpansion in the late 70s-early 80s in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and by unrestrained militarybuild-up in all areas. This compelled the United States, China, Western Europe, Japan, the Islamiccountries and local client states of the West and China in Africa and Latin America to unite in opposi-tion to Moscow.

The American historian Paul Kennedy brilliantly explained the dialectic of imperial decline on thebasis of numerous historical examples, including the collapse of the Soviet Union, which PresidentPutin called one of the greatest geopolitical tragedies of the twentieth century. However, the Sovietcollapse 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 snatch-ing 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 ofnational 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 potentialbenefits from external expansion may be outweighed by the great expense of it all a dilemma whichbecomes acute if the nation concerned has entered a period of relative economic decline. 4 Otherrival 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 greatpowers, now in a state of relative decline, instinctively react by spending more on security and in sodoing, they siphon off even more money from investment and thus only further exacerbate theirfundamental dilemma.

This is precisely the scenario that led the Soviet Union into a situation where its economic resourc-es, political influence and ideological spirit were seriously undermined, and what is more, wereaccompanied by the economic and socio-political bankruptcy of the command economy and totalitar-ian 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 orderbased on new political thinking or on socialism with a human face. The tottering Soviet empire

was unable to withstand the second round of d'tente (after the first round in the early 70s) and thesecond thaw (after the first in the late 1950s) and rapidly began to crumble, despite having an armyof 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 ofthe world put together).

The Soviet Union thus became the first victim of the multipolar system of international relations inthe post-World War II period. It did not lose the Cold War, as many in the West and their imitators inRussia assert, but rather, it lost the new political game, the rules of which were being set by an emerg-ing multipolarity.

A HISTORICALPERSPECTIVEONTHECURRENTDETERIORATIONINRELATIONSThe 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. Seriousanalysis of the concepts set forth above makes it clear that the term Cold War does not apply at allto 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 EuropeanUnion, Japan, Russia and China, there also emerge such regional leaders as India, the Pacifics lit-tle tigers, the ASEAN countries, Iran, Brazil, South Africa and Nigeria. Moreover, the traditionalboundaries of international relations are being eroded by the powerful currents of globalization andthe information revolution, the rising tide of nationalism around the world and the trend of transna-tional economic, political and even military players coming to the forefront. A dynamic, exception-ally complex and multilevel system of international relations is taking shape, in which diverse actorscan play different roles in different areas of interaction and in specific global economic, political andsecurity 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 themost important issues, not even among the most significant. Aside from their differences, Russia andthe West also share very important common interests and face competition from other countries andfrom 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 tomor-rows partners, and vice-versa. Excessively weakening ones opponent does not automatically result ingains it can also lead to a third party rapidly gaining strength and result in an even greater threatthan 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 notchecked 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 playerscan 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 amongthemselves 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 forits economic and domestic political handicaps.

Without bipolarity, the other manifestations of Cold War are also absent. Russia and the West arenot on different sides of the barricades in the current international conflicts, no matter what differ-ences they may have regarding specific decisions. In Afghanistan, they are working together to preventa return of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. They are acting together through negotiations and multilateralforums 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 thanthe positions between the United States and its allies.) Differences between Russia and the West aregreater 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, SierraLeone 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 twosides 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 OffensiveReductions Treaty). The modernization of nuclear and conventional forces is proceeding extremelyslowly. 6 There remain, of course, issues of concern for strategic stability, such as U.S. plans to deploya missile defense system to protect itself from isolated missile launches (plans which include deploy-ing elements of the system in a number of European countries), U.S. future projects for developingspace-based arms and plans to equip strategic delivery systems with high-precision conventional war-heads. However, although mutual nuclear deterrence continues to play a part in the strategic relationsbetween 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, origi-nating in Washington, that with the Cold War over, there is now no need to hold talks and negotiatenew arms reduction agreements, supposedly only needed between adversaries. Unfortunately, afterfirst 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 implementedsince 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 fallenvictim to this irresponsible stance taken by the United States. Negotiations on the warhead countingrules and verification measures for the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (2002) and on prohibit-ing the production of fissile materials for military purposes (Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty) did nottake place. In 2007, Russia announced that it might withdraw from the Intermediate-Range NuclearForces Treaty (INF Treaty, 1987) 7 and the Agreement on Adaptation of the Conventional Forces inEurope Treaty (1999). The policies of the nuclear-weapons states and the threshold states now threat-en 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 theexcess of outdated weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems left over from the Cold Warperiod (primarily through the Nunn-Lugar Program.) However, this was not enough to fundamentallychange the military relations between the great powers, all the more so as it went hand in hand with adeadlock in the dialogue on bilateral and multilateral disarmament.

During this unclear transitional period, when the two countries have become neither opponentsnor allies, the military and strategic relations between them have stalled. Left to themselves, the armedforces 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 combat-ing separatism, but as the political differences intensified, military exercises have openly revertedto the traditional scenarios of armed conflict breaking out between Russia and NATO. 9 Russia nowconducts exercises on its western land borders, and NATO in the Arctic seas. 10 In reality, though theyhave tried to be discrete about it, the U.S. and Russian strategic forces have never abandoned nuclearstrike 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 posi-

tioned as the motivation and justification for military and geopolitical rivalry. The end of the ColdWar coincided with the collapse of the communist ideology. North Korea and Cuba are probably theonly two countries left in the world that still firmly adhere to communism. Even China is undergoingfar-reaching ideological transformation through its policy of developing capitalism under the auspic-es of the Chinese Communist Party, which itself is looking more and more like the Kuomintang. It istrue 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 politicalfriction between the various sides, but this in the modern context does not signal a return to the kindof confrontation between Russia and the West that existed during the Cold War.

The truly confrontational ideological schism today has developed between liberal-democratic val-

ues 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 tojoin forces with radical Islam. Russia is the country that has suffered the greatest losses over the last20 years in the conflict with Islamic extremism (the war in Afghanistan, the wars and conflicts in


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Chechnya, Dagestan and Tajikistan). 11 All of the tactical maneuvering notwithstanding, Russia andthe West have reacted to the rise of militant Islam by moving much closer together as allies rather thanremaining strategic opponents.

Such are the inexorable laws of globalization and the multipolar world, no matter how negative theWest 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 thelast 15 years has reinforced a feeling of nostalgia in Russia and the U.S. for the simple two-dimensionalconstruct of the Cold War era world. A good number of Russian theoreticians today, filling the gapsin an education dominated by the dogma of Marxism-Leninism, are now immersing themselves witha neophytes enthusiasm in the century-old ideas of Mackinder on the age-old struggle between seaand land powers and the ceaseless hostility between Western-Christian materialism and Eastern-Orthodox spirituality, and are eagerly sharing their newfound knowledge with others. The West alsohas no shortage of people ready to preach their vision of Russia as an inherently authoritarian, semi-

Asiatic 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.

POLITICALREALITYANDPERCEPTIONSThere 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 thathad been building for some time.

The first reason is Russias policy of changing the rules of the game for relations between Russiaand the West that were established during the 1990s, and the Wests, particularly United States, reluc-tance to accept these changes.

Not a single Russian political party or state body is prepared now to accept the paradigm of relationsof 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 isthe 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 politi-cal scientist Laurence Freedman summed up this view most bluntly when he wrote that there is nowno 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 theclout to enforce its objections to developments it considers harmful or to take on the sort of respon-sibilities that can earn it international credit.12

The United States views the current and increasingly more evident abandonment of the 1990s para-digm 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 itsevaluation 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 unu-sual 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 sustainedeconomic growth and enjoyed relative social and political stability. Moscow has consolidated its powerin the country, obtained large amounts of capital for domestic and foreign investment, has virtuallyrepaid its foreign dept, sharply increased its defense spending (four-fold since 2001) and suppresseda mass armed uprising in the North Caucasus. President Putin constantly makes reference to thesechanges at every possible opportunity.

At the same time, the U.S., the European Union, and Japan have all seen their international posi-tions weaken somewhat, but the West hesitates to admit these objective changes, preferring to viewthem 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 inthe late 1950s-early 1960s, between the Soviet Union and China at the end of the 1960s, and betweenthe U.S. and Western Europe (in the less acute form inherent to democratic countries, of course) inthe 1970s.


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The Russian political elite now feels a new surge of self-confidence and national pride, perhapseven beyond what the countrys objective economic, social and defense achievements merit. As aresult, in sharp contrast to the 1990s, Moscow, no longer wanting to blindly follow the U.S. lead inresolving regional crises (in Kosovo, Palestine, Iran and North Korea), has redoubled its diplomaticefforts 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 areindependent of the U.S., NATO and the EU, such as the Collective Security Treaty Organization, theEurasian 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 com-pete in renouncing certain arms reduction treaties (the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty and theConventional Forces in Europe Treaty) and in expressing dissatisfaction with international organiza-tions (as the U. S. has criticized the United Nations, Russia has criticized the OSCE).

LOSTOPPORTUNITIESThe 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 interna-tional organizations (above all the UN and OSCE), the primacy of diplomacy in conflict resolutionand the exclusive selectivity and adequate legal basis for using military force for self-defense or toprotect 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 worldorder in coordination with the worlds other centers of power, but it failed to take advantage of thisopportunity.

Savoring the euphoria of unexpectedly finding itself the worlds sole superpower, the United Statesincreasingly began to substitute the rule of superior power for the rule of international law, to replacelegitimate UN Security Council decisions with directives of the U.S. National Security Council, and toignore the prerogatives of the OSCE in favor of NATO action. The starkest and most tragic expressionof this policy was the military operation against Yugoslavia in 1999. After the change of administra-

tion and the shock of the horrific terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, this policy was enshrinedbeyond 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 plannedto go further by reformatting the entire Greater Middle East to fit its own economic, political andmilitary interests.

Empires are not interested in acting within the international system; they think they are the inter-national system, Henry Kissinger wrote of this kind of policy. Empires have no need for a balance ofpower. It is in this way that the United States has pursued its foreign policy on the American continentand China in Asia for greater part of their history. 13 This was Washingtons strategic mistake after theend of the Cold War, because the world did not become unipolar. On the contrary, a new multipolarand multilevel system of international relations emerged. No matter how great its economic and mili-tary might, any country that arrogantly challenged the new system and took the road of unilateral andarbitrary 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 thatled to the Soviet Unions collapse.

The scandal that erupted following the discovery that official U.S. agencies had deliberately pro-vided false information in order to justify the invasion of Iraq, the grave human rights violations thatoccurred at the prisons of Abu-Ghraib and Guantanamo, and the rigged trials and medieval execu-tions 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 thatmany U.S. politicians and experts, though they take domestic criticism of the administration forgranted, do not seem capable of realizing that Americas image has sunk to an unprecedented low andcontinue using a tone of moral superiority in their dealings with the outside world (a classic exampleof this was Senator Liebermans remarks in Munich on February 10, 2007, when he said that the worldis 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 Iraqwith no end in sight, has undermined UN and NATO coalition policy in Afghanistan, and has tied itsown hands in dealing with Iran and North Korea. Washington has provoked an unprecedented surgein 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 inaffairs in the post-Soviet area and exacerbates its relations with Russia, it is at the same time losing influ-ence 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 ofIraq, 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 theLeague of Islamic States have been nudged into the camp of international opposition by the UnitedStates unilateral power policy. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which was established in2000 as a coalition for combating Islamic extremism, has become a counterweight to American inter-

vention in Asia. Since 2006, opposition to the Republican administration has also been on the rise inthe United States itself.

A period of difficulty and internal contradictions has also begun for the European Union, includ-ing the failure to adopt the European Constitution, a slowdown in economic growth rates, a worsen-ing demographic situation, a rise in ethnic and religious conflict, energy security concerns, stagnationin 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 experienceddegradation 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 regardto Moscow. Instead of brazenly meddling in Russias internal affairs during the 1990s, the U.S. andNATO should have tried to create as favorable a security climate as possible and helped to encourageMoscows 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 foreignpolicy and military weakness to stake a claim to as many advantages as it could before Russia couldagain 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 Russiasnew political class, who saw Russia as having won the Cold War, as it was through the end of it that thecountry had gained its statehood and sovereignty.

Together with shock therapy and its consequences, this Western policy towards Russia was thebiggest factor gradually undermining the Russian democratic parties and movements since the startof the 1990s. The United States international strategy began looking more and more like the Sovietdomestic 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 treatieson Russia (the first draft of START-2 with its 10-year implementation period), and in NATOs unilateralposition on the Yugoslav conflicts that culminated in extensive missile strikes and bombings of Serbiaand 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 Yugoslavconflict 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 andsympathy 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 linetowards Russia, and the fact that President Putin and his new U.S. counterpart, George W. Bush, tooka personal liking to each other at their summit in Ljubljana did little to soften it. After the September11 terrorist attacks, Putin, motivated by unquestionable personal sympathy, granted significant con-cessions to the United States, but acted at the same time to try to change relations through a signifi-cant increase in cooperation. Of course, it was in Moscows interests to crush the Taliban, but Russiacould have opted to take a stand of well-intentioned neutrality (citing the feelings of Russias Muslimpopulation and the Afghan syndrome). However, the Kremlin decided to go against the prevailingmood of the political elite and give its full and unconditional support to creating the anti-terroristcoalition, 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 formof the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty), war in Iraq (and the liquidation of Russias oil conces-sions there), and further NATO expansion eastwards, including former Soviet territory in the Balticstates. 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 byCongress, which refused to let go of the obsolete Jackson-Vanik Amendment of 1974 (imposing eco-nomic 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 con-stantly 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 NATOand the EU en masse, while Moscow had to make do with all sorts of palliatives such as the Partnershipfor Peace, the Russia-NATO Council and the Partnership and Cooperation Agreement with theEuropean Union. Various pretexts were used to send Russia the message that it was not being invitedto 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 Russian-U.S. military and political cooperation reached unprecedented levels, Putin spoke quite transparentlyabout Russias desire to hold a serious discussion on the possibilities and forms of membership inNATO. Asked how Moscow viewed the second wave of NATO expansion, Putin said, We would recon-sider our position on expansion, of course, if we were ourselves part of this process. 14 No reactionfollowed 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 queuebehind Latvia, Romania, Slovakia and other candidates.) Such was NATOs farsighted positionregarding a great power that had completely freed the West from military threat from the east, at greatcost 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 naturaland justified process of European integration. However, relations took a turn for the worse when EUenlargement began to create unexpected humanitarian and military problems (such as the transit ofpeople and military cargoes to and from Russias Kaliningrad Region), and when it became effectivelytied to and synchronized with NATOs eastward expansion.

In its attempts to formulate its position on cooperation with Russia, the EU could come up withnothing better in its official documents for 20032004 than to include Russia among its good neigh-bors, along with the countries of the southern Mediterranean (that is to say, North Africa and theMiddle East), or to place it among more distant partners such as China and India. 15 Caught up inits own internal problems and in the issue of Turkeys accession, the EU has failed to come up witha substantial and attractive program for rapprochement with Russia to replace the Cooperation andPartnership Agreement, which expires in 2007. The European Union is mainly concerned with ensur-ing reliable supplies of Russian energy, thus delegating to Russia the role of raw materials providerfor the rest of Europe.

It is not surprising that Moscow eventually abandoned hope of achieving a rapid and consistentintegration with the West on the basis of equality, mutual advantage and respect for each others inter-ests, 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 Ukrainein support of the most anti-Russian politicians in 20042006 (which led to suspicion that the samemodel was also being applied in Kyrgyzstan). This was followed by the announcement of the decisionto 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 Polandand the Czech Republic, which contradicts the spirit of both the 2002 Russian-U.S. Joint Declarationon cooperating on the development of a missile defense system and negotiations in the Russia-NATOCouncil 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 longergoing to seek more intensive cooperation in the absence of any signs of sincere interest on the otherside. This should in no way be construed as a break in relations. Moscow will continue to work togeth-er in all areas, including at the bilateral level, with the European countries and, under acceptableconditions, with the United States. As for recognition by the West of Russias interests in the post-Soviet area, Moscow no longer expects any gratitude from the U.S. and its allies for Russias help inother matters, and it will take energetic (and not just verbal) measures to counter Western policy if itcontradicts Russias national interests.

THE CIS ASANAPPLEOFDISCORDThe 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 loyalstates, minus Armenia, form the Eurasian Economic Community, the economic nucleus of theCIS, and together with China, but without Belarus and Armenia, are members of the ShanghaiCooperation 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 thecountries 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 lookto Russia for help in countering external threats and/or domestic opposition, and that depend onRussian economic support (the exception is Kazakhstan, which is linked to Russia by major economicinterests and a large ethnic Russian community, but which also follows well balanced policies of coop-eration with the United States and China).

The prospect of seeing the GUAM countries join NATO has incited Russia to take an even tougherline towards them and their problems (such as separatism and dependence on Russian energy sup-plies). GUAM and NATO have retaliated in turn by working even more actively against Moscow in thepost-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 theWest.

Russia made its fair share of policy mistakes in the post-Soviet area during the 1990s by trying toestablish its dominance in the region through openly encouraging separatism in neighboring coun-tries, supporting loyal but repressive regimes, making use of the military presence that remained fromthe Soviet years and brazenly using energy supplies as a means of blackmail. With a few rare excep-tions, this policy had no concrete aims other than to revive some kind of coalition of satellite coun-tries 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 economicand financial potential and independence, it began taking a very pragmatic approach towards eachindividual country or sub-region. It abandoned ephemeral imperial projects in relations with itsneighbors and turned its attention instead to the transit of energy exports, the acquisition of promis-ing business assets and infrastructure, investment in natural resources exploration and production,maintaining genuinely important military bases and facilities, working together on combating newtransborder 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-Georgiancampaign of autumn 2006), but it is at least a lot clearer and more predictable than the eccentric andoften very aggressive policy of the 1990s.

The conflicts with Ukraine and Belarus over energy prices and transit costs, which disrupted energysupplies to Europe, unleashed a wave of indignation in the West, accusations that Russia was practic-ing a policy of energy imperialism and blackmail, and even calls to use NATO in order to guaranteethe 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 rep-resent the renunciation of the former imperialist policy of economic favors in return for political ormilitary-strategic loyalty. This has been confirmed by Moscows similarly pragmatic approach to neigh-bors 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 foraccusing Russia of blackmail. Russia does not have any sacred duty to provide the world with energysupplies, all the more so when Russian domestic consumption is on the rise. Relations between Russiaand the West in this sector should be based solely on a market basis of mutual benefit, the economicsituation and long-term commercial commitments, without any added layer of political preferencesor demands on either side.

In this respect, the politically motivated Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline that bypasses Russia and NATOscampaign 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 thatis 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 countriesagainst the backdrop of Russias decisive use of armed force to suppress Chechen separatism in twopast wars.

Russias policy on these issues cannot be justified in every aspect, especially in the case of the firstChechen 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 Kosovocrisis, Russia has at least not bombed Tbilisi, Chisinau and Baku in order to force them to accept the lossof part of their territory. Russia has troops and military bases and installations in all of the CIS countriesexcept for Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan (NATO troops and installations are present only in Tajikistanand 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 peacekeep-ing contingents in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transniestria against the wishes of the Georgian andMoldovan 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 neighboringcountries from being resolved through the use of force surely not a blameworthy objective. It wouldbe better, of course, if Russia were working more actively to bring about a peaceful settlement to thesefrozen 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 neigh-

bors. The whole question is: how to ensure that this friendship is built. These friendly relations shouldbe developed on the basis of a clear awareness by the public and the political elites in Russia and theneighboring countries of their common economic, political and humanitarian interests and commonexternal and internal security objectives. A friendship built on this foundation means there is no needto worry each time there are elections, a change of leadership or a color revolution in the neighbor-ing 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 exerciseparticular tact regarding the post-Soviet republics sensitivity over everything that concerns theirrecently acquired independence and should make its position clear regarding the imperialist rhetoricof certain irresponsible Russian officials, politicians and experts.

The United States and the European Union, for their part, should be just as tactful regardingRussias sensitivity over events in the post-Soviet area. It should not be forgotten that only 15 yearsago, 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 andtransparent 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 canunderstand and that do not go beyond the limits of accepted practice. This means that if Russia andthe 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, andcooperation.

THE WESTAND RUSSIANDEMOCRACYThe 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, analystsand journalists of Putins administration for rolling back democratic laws and institutions is fair inmany ways. However, in the context of a historic analysis, it is important to identify the clear referencepoints in this criticism.

In comparison with most Western countries, democratic laws and institutions in Russia are under-developed, and real political life is very different from the formal constitutional mechanisms, proce-dures and laws that exist on paper. Then again, Russia started down this road only 15 years ago, whilethe leading Western countries have been following it for tens or hundreds of years, also making bighistorical 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 compara-tively 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, widespreadimpoverishment, 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 andits defense capability all crumbled overnight (as Grigory Yavlinsky put it, the people lived through twocoups, two defaults and two wars in less than a decade.)

It should not be forgotten that during the democratic Yeltsin years, tanks shelled the parlia-ment in the center of Moscow at point-blank range and no one ever bothered to count the casual-

ties. Aviation and artillery twice leveled the Russian city of Grozny; people were tortured in filtrationcamps; journalists were murdered (Dmitry Kholodov, Vladislav Listyev); the generals plundered thearmed forces; bureaucrats filled their pockets with foreign loans; and the oligarchs grew fat on thecountrys industrial assets and natural resources. State affairs were run by a clique of relatives andbootlickers, and the presidential bodyguard service carried out raids on businessmen and madethem 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 andallowed direct foreign intervention in Russian internal affairs (even including appointments to seniorgovernment posts)?

For objectivitys sake, it must be recognized that, modest though the gains may seem by some othernations standards, the majority of Russians have never enjoyed such political freedom and materialprosperity as they do now, not in the 1990s, not during the preceding 75 years of communist govern-

ment, and not during the centuries of tsarist rule. Yes, Russians suffer from rising prices, rampantcorruption and crime and the arbitrariness of power at all levels, but all of these problems existedunder 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 everydaylife 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 execu-tive hierarchy and managed democracy. It is not at all that Russians have an inherent yearning forauthoritarian 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 thatkind of democracy.

The main problem with managed democracy and the vertical executive hierarchy is that thecurrent 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 Russiasmain export, which accounts for half of its total export earnings and a third of federal budget rev-enue. All around the world, economies based on the export of raw materials have always given riseto authoritarian-bureaucratic political systems rather than democratic systems, with all the perennialattributes such as limited civil rights and freedoms, corruption, social stratification and reactionarypolitical movements. At the same time, economies based on the export of raw materials do not ensurethe high employment levels and budget

aleksei arbatov_politica externa rusa

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