A Cold Peace?

A Cold Peace?

Russian (and Chinese) positions have prevented the UN Security Council from taking any meaningful action to sanction Iran for continuing its nuclear weapons program. Russia has responded to Estonia's decision to move a Soviet-era war memorial and 12 unmarked graves from the center of the city to its international military cemetery by instigating riots by ethnic Russians in Tallinn; blockading Estonia's Embassy in Moscow; halting Russian oil and coal exports to Estonia; and a hysterical media campaign of a nature last seen at the height of the Cold War. Estonia is a member of both the EU and NATO, which adds to the seriousness of the Russian actions.

Russia's consistent and blatant use of energy supplies to bully, blackmail (or reward) countries in its "near abroad" to follow favorable political lines worries West Europeans dependent on stabile and predictable supplies of oil and gas. Russian President Vladimir Putin has attacked American policies in a February 10 speech in Munich and then in his annual address to the Russian Parliament on April 26. In that speech, he suspended Russian adherence to the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty, which among other things requires Russia to remove its troops from Georgia and Moldova. He fiercely opposes the American missile defense system being deployed in Poland and the Czech Republic.

How did we come to this situation? For a brief, shining moment at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s, it seemed that the hostile relationship, which had existed with the Soviet Union from its creation in 1922, was, along with the Berlin Wall and Communism itself, going into the dustbin of history. The magnitude of the change at that time led to optimism that we would be able to build a new and positive relationship with Russia. After all, the Warsaw Pact was disbanded, the Communist Party rule in the Soviet Union ended, the Soviet Union itself was broken up peacefully and fifteen separate countries created, and the beginnings of a truly democratic transformation in Russia were underway.

But the reality is that we were naïve in our approach to the "new" Russia. We fell into the trap of assuming that lurking in the heart of all humans are "democratic, market oriented, peaceful, Western-oriented" genes just waiting to come out. All it takes according to this simplistic view of the world is for dictators and authoritarian regimes to be overthrown. So we tend to focus on bringing about the downfall of a Slobodan Milosevic, for example, and think the movie is over with a happy ending. In fact, the movie is nowhere near over and the ending is probably going to be ambiguous at best. Iraq, of course, is another classic example. Remember President Bush's pronouncement four years ago of "Mission Accomplished!?

What Russia was experiencing in that period about two decades ago was the implosion of the Communist empire combined with a great deal of confusion and uncertainty over the way ahead. This was heightened by low prices for oil and gas, which helped to seriously undermine the Russian economy. For a period of time, Russia lost its bearings and had to focus on internal developments. As a result, for at least a few years, Russia was effectively "absent" from world political developments. Even if it did raise objections to actions such as the expansion of NATO into the "near abroad," the protests did not stop the expansion and were not treated as any sort of "veto."  

We mistakenly believed that Russia would fall into the same pattern of democratic transition as the rest of the Warsaw Pact. We thought that the same sort of "soft power" used by the European Union so effectively in Central and Eastern Europe to encourage democratic and bureaucratic reform would take place in Russia as well. We failed to appreciate the historic differences between Russia and the satellite regimes, which it conquered and controlled for decades. Unlike most of those other countries, Russia had virtually no experience in stabile, democratic rule and seems to want authoritarian rule (even Stalin still remains a popular figure with many). Moreover, as impoverished as most of its citizens were, they still took great pride in being one of two global superpowers. They believed in a historic right to dominate the "near abroad. They felt humiliated by the advances of NATO and the collapse of Soviet power. 

It is not that we were not warned by the Russians themselves and by leading outside experts of the dangers ahead. I was present at an OSCE Ministerial Conference in Stockholm on December 14, 1992 when the Russian Foreign Minister, Andrei Kozyrev (long viewed as the most pro-Western, most moderate and progressive Foreign Minister in Russian/Soviet history) delivered a blistering, bitter cold-war speech. He accused NATO of pursuing goals that were "essentially unchanged" and seeking military advantage in Eastern Europe. He threatened, "Unilateral measures" unless the West removed sanctions against Serbia, which he said, "can count on the support of Great Russia." He declared that Russia would defend its interests by military and economic means and that the former Republics of the Soviet Union must join a new federation immediately. In subsequent articles, he proudly refers to this as his "shock" speech, as he returned to the podium after about an hour (and a private meeting with U.S. Deputy Secretary Eagleburger) to say that he was "just kidding" and wanted to show the world the sort of foreign policy that would result if the nationalists came to power in Russia due to counter-productive acts and lack of support from the West for democratic forces. Well, they have.

If one reads the history of that era, it is clear that the current tendencies of Vladimir Putin are exactly what the scholars and Russian moderates had predicted more than a decade ago. All that has changed is that Russia has a strong, determined leader and the price of oil and gas has risen dramatically, turning Russia from an economic basket case to world power almost overnight. This has given Russia the capability to assert the prerogatives it believes it is due as a world power.

So, this leaves two questions. The first is whether different policies by the West in the 1990s, when Russia was weakened, could have helped to transform Russia into the sort of strategic partner we wanted? The historians can fight that out. The more important one is whether Russia's estrangement from the West now becomes even more pronounced and destabilizing.

This is where Kosovo comes in, because in terms of US-Russian relations, the timing of the Kosovo question could not be worse. Russian President Putin is actively looking for ways to show his unhappiness with U.S. policies and Kosovo provides a golden opportunity. It seems more and more likely that Kosovo will not be resolved in the near future by a UN Security Council Resolution and that this in turn will lead to significant instability in the region. One can be sure, for example, that many in the West will blame Russia for the recent election as Serbian Speaker of Parliament, Toma Nikolic, acting head of the Serbian Radical Party. Richard Holbrooke, publicly, but many American officials privately, have made it very clear that Russia will be held accountable for any violence that occurs due to failure to pass a Security Council Resolution on Kosovo.

The point is that both Russia and the United States should be looking for ways to improve their relationship in the interest of both parties, but that events like Kosovo keep getting in the way. And without any advance planning or intention, the relationship continues to deteriorate. In the great scheme of world events, Kosovo is far less important either to Russia or to the United States than is the bilateral relationship between the two countries. But at the present time, neither seems willing or able to take the sort of steps (and compromises), which would reflect that reality.