WASHINGTON - Almost 15 years after the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, ties between
Russia and the United States are "headed in the
wrong direction", suggests a new report released
here this week by the influential Council on
Foreign Relations (CFR).
In addition to
disagreements over an increasing number of
foreign-policy issues - most recently, Moscow's
hosting of top officials of
the
Palestinian Hamas party - the US is concerned
about internal developments in Russia,
particularly what it regards as the growing
concentration of power in the Kremlin under
President Vladimir Putin.
"At a time when
the president of the United States has made
democracy a goal of American foreign policy,
Russia's political system is becoming steadily
more authoritarian," according to "Russia's Wrong
Direction: What the United States Can and Should
Do", the 98-page product of a CFR task force that
included many top US experts and former
policymakers who have specialized in Russian
affairs.
"Russia is a less open and less
democratic society than just a few years ago, and
the rollback of pluralism and centralization of
power may not have run their course," says the
report, which is likely to strengthen those in the
administration of US President George W Bush and
Congress who have called for a tougher line with
Moscow.
The task force, which was chaired
by former vice-presidential candidates from both
major US parties, comes amid growing signs of
contention within the administration over Russia
policy.
According to a recent Washington
Post report, Vice President Dick Cheney convened a
group of independent Russia specialists in his
office in January as part of a review of policy
toward Moscow. He also asked National Director of
Intelligence John Negroponte for an assessment of
Putin's future plans and policies.
One
month later, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
a Russia specialist in her own right and widely
regarded as the chief defender within the
administration of maintaining good ties with
Moscow, convened a similar group to discuss
Putin's trajectory in what was taken as a response
to Cheney's moves.
The Post described the
two moves as preliminary skirmishing in advance of
Russia's assumption of the chairmanship of the
Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations in
mid-July for the first time since it joined the
exclusively Western Group of Seven (G7) in 1998.
Because Putin is seen increasingly as
taking Moscow in a direction that threatens US and
other Western interests, the administration has
begun considering how it may take part in the St
Petersburg meeting without appearing to endorse
Putin's leadership. One prominent Republican and
possible presidential candidate in 2008, Senator
John McCain, has even called for Bush to boycott
the summit in protest.
CFR's task force,
which was chaired by former congressman Jack Kemp,
the Republican candidate for vice president in
1996, and former senator John Edwards, the
Democrats' vice-presidential candidate in 2004,
does not go nearly as far and, indeed, repeatedly
stresses the importance of "positive" engagement
with Russia.
"On a whole host of issues -
Iran, energy, HIV/AIDS and preventing terrorists
from acquiring weapons of mass destruction - it's
vital to have Russia on our side," Kemp said,
adding that the G8 summit offered "a real
opportunity to lock in more helpful Russian
policies. But if we don't see progress, people are
going to ask what Russia is doing in the G8 in the
first place."
The best way to proceed at
the summit, according to the task force, is to
"make clear that [Russia's chairmanship] does not
exempt [its] policies and actions from critical
scrutiny" and, at the same time, to effect "a de
facto revival of the [G7]" that will enable
Washington and other Western states to assume a
"stronger coordinating role" within the G8.
The report's dominant tone is one of
disappointment and concern over the way US-Russian
relations have developed over the past several
years. "US-Russia relations are clearly headed in
the wrong direction," it asserts. "Contention is
crowding out consensus. The very idea of a
'strategic partnership' no longer seems
realistic."
"US-Russia relations are now
marked by a growing number of disagreements. The
partnership is not living up to its potential,"
according to the report, which recommends a policy
of "selective cooperation" and "selective
opposition".
Aside from what the report
calls Putin's "de-democratization", the greatest
concerns listed by the task force include its
recent use of energy exports as a weapon,
particularly against countries in its "near
abroad" - namely, Ukraine and Georgia.
"The reassertion of government control
over the Russian energy sector increases the risk
that this weapon will be used again," says the
report.
Similarly, it cites a growing
split with Washington over Bush's "war on terror".
In particular, recent efforts by Moscow - along
with China - to curtail US access to military
bases in Central Asia and to engage Hamas, as it
did in meetings in the Russian capital just last
week, fit into "a worrying pattern", according to
the report, which adds that Moscow's efforts to
crush the insurgency in Chechnya have not helped.
At the same time, the report notes that
US-Russian cooperation on a number of fronts has
been valuable and continues. These include
programs designed to increase the security of
nuclear materials and other sensitive technologies
and to encourage growing US trade and investment
in Russia as well as more recent cooperation on
curbing Iran's alleged ambition to acquire nuclear
weapons.
It also notes that Russia has
experienced significant economic progress under
Putin. In part because of the rise in global
energy prices, the number of people below the
government's poverty line fell from 42 million to
26 million between 2000 and 2004, while
unemployment declined from more than 10% six years
ago to about 7% today, the report said.
It
offers a series of recommendations, including
increasing - rather than decreasing, as proposed
by the administration for 2007 - "Freedom Support
Act" funds for non-governmental organizations in
advance of the 2008 Russian elections and working
with Washington's European allies to press Moscow
on reforms to its trade and investment regime and
assurances that its state-controlled energy
companies will "act like true commercial
entities", rather than as instruments of
government policy.
The report calls for
Washington to offer greater support to states
along Russia's periphery, particularly those that
wish to pursue greater independence from Russian
influence, including in their choice of security
allies and partners.
Directed by Stephen
Sestanovich, who served as ambassador-at-large to
the states of the former Soviet Union during the
second term of former president Bill Clinton, the
task force included a number of other top Clinton
officials, such as former deputy secretary of
state Strobe Talbott and senior Pentagon official
Walter Slocombe, as well as former Bush officials,
such as Dov Zakheim and Robert Blackwill.
