COMMENT US, Russia can build
on 'cold peace' By Stanley A
Weiss
WASHINGTON - To watch senior
American and Russian officials in Moscow last
week, it's clear that US-Russian ties - once seen
as a budding strategic partnership - now exhibit
all the frustrations and finger-pointing of a
dysfunctional relationship.
After keeping
his guests - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
and Defense Secretary Robert Gates - waiting for
some 40 minutes, Russian President Vladimir Putin
railed against
Washington for "forcing" its
policies on Eastern Europe and sarcastically
suggested that a planned US missile defense system
was feasible "somewhere on the moon".
Despite Gates' reassurance that the
10-interceptor system would have "no impact" on
Russia's massive nuclear arsenal, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov warned that Moscow would
"neutralize this threat", evoking previous Russian
threats to target its nuclear weapons against
system sites in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Moscow's recent decision to resume Cold
War-style bombing patrols is "something that
belongs in another era", said Rice, who called for
"countervailing institutions" to balance the
autocratic Russian president.
While Rice
accused Iran of "lying" about its nuclear
ambitions, Lavrov warned against "unilateral"
(read "American") actions against Tehran, which
Putin this month became the first Kremlin leader
to visit since Josef Stalin in 1943.
Russia and the US have too much at stake
to let their big chill harden into a new cold war.
Yet, as they grow apart with different priorities
- including Putin's new scheme to retain power as
prime minister - a genuine reconciliation is
unlikely any time soon. How, then, to make the
best of this cold peace?
Going forward,
Moscow and Washington should remember that, in
many ways, they are made for each other. As the
two largest nuclear powers - both victims of
Islamic jihadis - there is no substitute for
US-Russia cooperation in reducing nuclear
arsenals, preventing the spread of weapons of mass
destruction and combating terrorism.
Washington won't succeed in curtailing
nuclear programs in North Korea and Iran without
Moscow. Russia won't truly succeed in diversifying
its oil and gas-dependent economy, or gain
membership of the World Trade Organization,
without American investment and assistance.
For its part, Washington might win back
some Russian hearts with a little empathy for
their post-Cold War trauma. After all, how would
Americans react if, having lost the Cold War,
their country disintegrated, the Warsaw Pact
expanded to Mexico and Russia proposed installing
a missile defense system in Cuba?
"In the
Russian mind, their country was flat on its back
after the Cold War, and the US walked all over
them," says Brent Scowcroft, the national security
advisor to the president George H W Bush. "The
facts are almost irrelevant. That's how Russians
feel."
To avoid fueling Russian paranoia,
the North Atlantic Treaty Organization should
proceed slowly - if at all - with eventual
membership for former Soviet states like Ukraine
and Georgia. To show Moscow that the US welcomes a
real economic partnership, Congress should finally
repeal a Cold War relic - the Jackson-Vanik
amendment, originally designed to promote Russian
Jewish emigration - but which continues to block
normal trade relations.
For its part,
Moscow must resolve its post-communist identity
crisis and accept its 21st century post-superpower
status rather than cling to illusions of a 19th
century empire. This includes recognizing that
zero-sum security thinking - including
intimidation of smaller neighbors from the Baltic
to Georgia - that ultimately leaves Russia more
isolated and less secure.
Moreover, Moscow
should realize that its long-term security lies
with the West, not the East. Despite deepening
military and trade ties with China, Russia - with
its plummeting population - could find its empty
Far East and Siberian border regions with China
vulnerable to enduring territorial claims by
Beijing.
Fortunately, a foundation of
trust - however fragile - exists on which to
rebuild a relationship based on mutual interests.
A former US aid official in Russia highlights a
range of ongoing US-Russian partnerships tackling
common threats, from HIV/AIDS to money laundering
to human trafficking.
Most significantly,
Washington and Moscow recently marked 15 years of
the Cooperative Threat Reduction program -
championed by US senators Sam Nunn and Richard
Lugar - that has destroyed or de-activated more
than 10,000 Soviet-era nuclear missiles and
warheads. "But even more important than the
weapons we've destroyed," Nunn tells this
correspondent, "is the trust that has been built
between Russians and Americans - trust that can be
the foundation for cooperation in other areas."
For much the same reason, there's hope in
the American proposal unveiled in Moscow for a
"joint regional missile defense architecture" that
includes Russia and, perhaps, Russian and American
military personnel at one another's missile sites.
The resulting transparency and information-sharing
could hasten the greatest trust-building steps of
all - removing American and Russian nuclear
missiles from hair-trigger alert and further
reductions in nuclear arsenals, including
withdrawal of US nuclear forces from Europe.
Given the icy state of US-Russian
relations, such progress may be hard to imagine.
The roots of US-Russian friction will likely
remain for years to come. Russians - flush with
unprecedented oil and gas profits - will seek to
restore their status as a great and global power.
Americans - fearful of Moscow's authoritarianism
at home and assertiveness abroad - will seek to
constrain Russian ambitions.
In the
meantime, to paraphrase Lavrov, these two uneasy
partners don't have to experience a breakthrough
in their relations, they just need to avoid a
breakdown so that their mutual animosity doesn't
trump their mutual interests.
Stanley A Weiss is founding
chairman of Business Executives for National
Security, a nonpartisan organization based in
Washington. This is a personal comment.
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