October 15, 2005
What to Do About Russia
By James
M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul
PAGE
4 OF 5
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Dual-Track
Diplomacy
At a time
when Russia is intermittently ratcheting up the Cold War rhetoric,
offering little on foreign policy issues of most concern, and
heading in an increasingly authoritarian direction at home, what
is most needed in Washington is a new version of the dual-track
strategy Ronald Reagan pursued after 1982: offering serious cooperation
on strategic matters while at the same time standing up for America’s
democratic principles — principles President Bush has eloquently
elaborated in discussing other parts of the world — and
engaging directly with Russian society to help foster democratic
development.8 The president needs to send
strong signals that the United States seeks to promote both economic
and political reform in Ukraine and the Caucasus and their eventual
integration into Western institutions — not to isolate or
humiliate Russia, but because that is the only long-term strategy
for achieving stability in the region. Pursuing arms control while
simultaneously pressing our democratic values is not easy, but
it was successful in the 1980s, and it can be successful again.
Denuclearization,
Nonproliferation, and Counterproliferation. To pursue a dual-track
strategy, the Bush administration should move to offer Putin a
real agenda of mutual benefit to the United States and Russia.
The U.S.-Russia relationship is in desperate need of a new, grand,
and cooperative initiative. The logical place to start is in the
nuclear sphere.
Accelerating the dismantlement
of nuclear weapons, perhaps even with the aid of a new treaty,
would be one way to generate a new atmosphere of cooperation between
Russia and the United States and help the U. S. in its quest to
discourage proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide. A treaty
that defined rules for counting warheads, specified a timetable
for dismantlement, included robust verification procedures, made
cuts permanent, and did not allow demobilized weapons to be put
in storage (as is now the practice under the Strategic Offensive
Reductions Treaty signed in Moscow in 2002) would send a message
to the world that the United States is serious about meeting its
obligations specified in Article 6 of the Nuclear Nonproliferation
Treaty (npt).
Similarly, President
Bush could propose to Putin a new bilateral agreement pledging
to discontinue research and development of new nuclear weapons.
Neither the United States nor Russia needs to develop “mini-nukes”
or bunker-busting nuclear weapons, since the deployment of such
systems would increase, however slightly, the probability of using
nuclear weapons.
The administration
should also move quickly to expand and accelerate Cooperative
Threat Reduction (ctr). Of course, metrics for measuring success
must be made clear, and information about progress in meeting
these goals must be made more readily available. The lack of access
to storage facilities operated by the Russian Ministry of Defense
and the Agency for Atomic Energy (formerly the Ministry of Atomic
Energy, Minatom) has been a real impediment to the deeper development
of the Nunn-Lugar program for the safe and secure dismantlement
of nuclear weapons. In the summer of 2005, following on the heels
of discussions held by Bush and Putin in February at their Bratislava
summit, the Russian government offered the United States a small
number of opportunities to inspect sites, a step hailed by Senator
Lugar on his trip to Russia in August 2005. To expand these opportunities
further, American officials could lessen Russian suspicions about
American intentions in seeking greater access by giving Russian
officials greater access to American storage facilities. The more
transparency, the better. Special new emphasis should be placed
on the removal of highly enriched uranium from Russian naval systems
scheduled for dismantlement.
Both countries should
also sign a more robust and verifiable Fissile Material Cutoff
Treaty. If this new treaty is going to have any chance at success,
the current American proposal to limit verification procedures
— growing out of the Bush administration’s reluctance
to have an international organization carrying out on-site inspections
of American facilities — should be reversed. Russian and
American officials also must take the lead in establishing a new
protocol to the npt forbidding the acquisition of a closed fuel
cycle by any nonnuclear country seeking to develop nuclear power
capabilities.
Finally, more than
a decade after the end of the Cold War, it is simply absurd that
American and Russian nuclear forces remain on hair-trigger alert.
This practice must be stopped immediately.
Trade.
In addition to nuclear cooperation, the Bush administration should
offer a new course in the trade sphere. No act would buy the president
greater goodwill among Russian state officials and society at
large than Russia’s graduation from the Jackson-Vanik amendment
to the Trade Act of 1974. Jackson-Vanik rightly denied most favored
nation status to the Soviet Union because of its restrictive emigration
practices. Certainly some of the human rights problems that Senator
Jackson and Congressman Vanik wanted to address in 1974 remain,
but Jackson-Vanik no longer addresses these new strains of infringement.
It is time for Congress to graduate Russia from Jackson-Vanik
and thereby allow Russia to obtain permanent normal trading status
with the United States even before Russia joins the World Trade
Organization.
As a way to get the
legislation passed and send the right signals about democracy
to human rights activists inside Russia, the Bush administration
should work with congressional leaders to initiate legislation
to deal with new forms of human rights abuses in Russia today.
Specifically, the president should urge Congress to provide new
resources to the Jackson Foundation, a nonprofit organization
established with seed money from Congress to continue Jackson’s
agenda of promoting human rights and religious freedoms in the
Soviet Union and Russia. A better-funded Jackson Foundation could
make direct grants to those activists and organizations in Russia
that are still dedicated to the original principles outlined in
the 1974 legislation.
Securing
Russian Cooperation on America’s Security Agenda. On
several fronts, the United States needs to get greater cooperation
from President Putin than he has offered to date. The most pressing
issue is Iran’s nuclear program. If it goes forward, it
will dramatically destabilize the broader Middle East and may
compel states such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to pursue nuclear
weapons of their own, in addition to complicating relations with
the new government of Iraq. The Bush administration needs Russia’s
support for a unified international approach to the Iranian crisis
at a time when negotiations between the eu-3 (Britain, France,
and Germany) and Iran have broken down and the eu-3 may support
referring the problem to the un Security Council for sanctions.
Russia has given rhetorical support for the work being done by
the eu-3, but it needs to do more. Until a new international agreement
is reached with Iran, Putin should pull out of Iran all Russian
nuclear scientists and advisors at Bushehr and halt any further
transfer of nuclear technology or nuclear fuel.
In the event that
Russia continues to provide support for Iranian nuclear reactors,
the United States should seek greater international oversight
over the spent-fuel agreement Moscow and Tehran have forged. Iran
has agreed to send the spent fuel from the Bushehr reactor to
Russia so that this material is unavailable for reprocessing to
produce weapons-grade plutonium. But what if Iran reneges on the
deal after the reactor is completed? The Bush administration should
seek Russian agreement for international oversight of the spent-fuel
arrangement.
Of equal significance
is U.S.-Russian cooperation in fighting terrorist organizations.
American and Russian cooperation in defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan
was real and tangible. U.S. and Russian officials hint that they
continue to share and exchange intelligence about international
terrorist groups, and the nato-Russia Council established in 2002
has engaged in discussions about how to develop military cooperation
in this area. The Russian intelligence community, as well as Moscow’s
policy and academic communities, have unique experiences with
and insights about the greater Middle East from which their counterparts
in the United States can learn.
Unfortunately, however,
the Russian battle against secessionists has been portrayed as
part of the larger global war on terror. While al Qaeda has long
played an active role in supporting the secessionists, Russia’s
fight and America’s are not the same. More munitions have
been used in the past ten years in Chechnya than on any European
city since World War ii. Indiscriminate violence against civilians
has been the norm, which in turn has strengthened extremist ideologues
and weakened moderate nationalists inside Chechnya. This current
Russian strategy toward Chechnya does not serve American national
security interests.
The heavy-handed Russian
approach during the Ukrainian presidential elections highlights
the challenges for American interests in Eurasia. U.S. policy
since the end of 1991 has been to support the territorial integrity
and political independence of all the former republics of the
extinct Soviet Union. Baltic membership in nato and the eu has
secured those countries’ futures, but those countries beyond
nato’s reach still face threats from Russia. Russian support
for separatists in Moldova and Georgia is extremely destabilizing.
Ukraine’s future course is vitally important for signaling
what is and is not possible in the former Soviet Union. If Ukraine
is not successful in developing more significant partnerships
with nato and the eu, the divide between those countries of Central
and Eastern Europe that integrated into Europe and those of the
non-Baltic former Soviet Union that did not will threaten what
has been achieved since the end of the Cold War.
The essence of a new
approach would be to internationalize conflicts in the region,
and especially in Georgia and Moldova. The Russians cannot be
the only peacekeeping forces involved. Ideally, the United Nations
(including Russia) would endorse new multilateral deployments,
and the osce would take the lead in organizing a multinational
peacekeeping force. The negotiation processes must also be internationalized.
Georgian officials, for instance, can sit down at the negotiating
table with their Russian counterparts only if Americans and Europeans
are also seated there.
Finally, there is
oil. Russia not only is the world’s largest exporter of
oil and gas, but also still has one of the world’s largest
oil reserve bases and owns 30 percent of the world’s proven
gas reserves. Managing Russia’s growing presence in these
markets will be a major strategic challenge for the United States
for the coming decades. Assisting American direct foreign investment
in Russia, resisting greater state ownership of these resources,
and increasing the number of pipelines available to ship them
are strategic American objectives which can be pursued only through
a cooperative relationship with the Kremlin.
Reengaging
Russian Society. The development of a more comprehensive
relationship with the Russian government does not mean that U.S.
officials must endorse Putin’s autocratic ways or refrain
from discussing and promoting democratic values within Russian
society. There need not be a tradeoff between these two policy
directions. Putin and his government will cooperate with their
counterparts in Washington if and only if they see such engagement
as advancing their definition of Russia’s national interest.
They will not disrupt such beneficial cooperation between governments
in response to American efforts to engage Russian society. Therefore,
in addition to reinvigorating the state-to-state agenda with the
Kremlin, American officials must rededicate their efforts to promoting
the unfinished business of Russian democratization.
The battle for democracy
within Russia will be won or lost largely by internal forces.
At the margins, however, the United States can help to tilt the
balance in favor of those who support freedom. In seeking to influence
economic and political developments inside Russia, the United
States has few coercive tools available. Comprehensive, sustained,
and meaningful engagement of all elements of Russian society,
therefore, must be the strategy.
A new policy
of aiding Russian democracy begins by speaking the truth about
democratic erosion under Putin. Just weeks before assuming her
responsibilities as national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice
wrote about the deleterious consequences of not speaking honestly
about Russia’s internal problems: “The United States
should not be faulted for trying to help. But, as the Russian
reformer Grigori Yavlinsky has said, the United States should
have ‘told the truth’ about what was happening [inside
his country].”9 She then attacked
“the ‘happy talk’ in which the Clinton administration
engaged.” Rice’s message is even truer today. Words
matter. Yavlinsky and other defenders of democracy inside Russia
still want U.S. officials to tell the truth.
Direct personal engagement
with Russian democratic activists also matters. When Ronald Reagan
traveled to the Soviet Union in May 1988, he discussed arms control
and regional conflicts with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. But
Reagan did not let his friendship and cooperation with Gorbachev
overshadow his other chief concern while in town — human
rights. Speaking in Helsinki the day before entering the Soviet
Union for the first time, Reagan proclaimed that “There
is no true international security without respect for human rights.
. . . The greatest creative and moral force in this world, the
greatest hope for survival and success, for peace and happiness,
is human freedom.” During his stay in the Soviet capital,
Reagan echoed this theme in action and words many times, whether
in his speech to students at Moscow State University or at a luncheon
with nearly 100 human rights activists at the American ambassador’s
residence. Reagan did not simply show up for a photo-op with these
enemies of the Soviet dictatorship. He accorded these human rights
activists the same respect that he showed for his Soviet counterpart.
President Bush, Secretary Rice, and other high-profile American
officials must adopt a similar strategy of using meetings with
Russian democratic and human-rights activists to elevate attention
to their cause and help protect these brave people from further
harassment by the Russian government.
Material
support also can make a difference. At a time when Russian democracy
is eroding, some Bush administration officials have begun to discuss
the timetable for Russia’s “graduation” from
American-funded democracy programs. In every budget request since
coming to power, the Bush administration has cut funding to the
freedom Support Act (fsa) for the region as a whole and Russia
in particular. Between 2002 and 2004, funding for fsa fell from
$958 million to $548 million, while funding for Russia’s
portion of this support fell from $162 million in 2002 to $96
million in 2004 (which, as the result of wisdom on Capitol Hill,
was significantly more than the $73 million originally requested
by the Bush administration) and dropped still further in 2005.
The Bush Administration’s fy 2006 freedom Support Act request
for Russia is a mere $48 million.
The administration
argues that Russia’s economic growth allows for cuts in
some of the economic programs and that the portion of the funds
geared toward democracy promotion is not being targeted to the
same extent. But the funds for democracy promotion should be increased.
Not only is the job of democracy building in Russia incomplete;
it is becoming more difficult. Moreover, if the United States
abandons democratic activists in Russia now — well before
democracy has taken root — what signal will this send about
American staying power to democratic leaders in Iraq and Afghanistan?
This assistance should also be more focused, targeted to those
actors and organizations directly fighting to preserve democratic
practices. For instance, now is the time to give more technical
and financial support to independent media, electoral monitoring
organizations, social policy campaigns, public-interest law firms,
anti-corruption watchdog groups, and youth movements. At a time
when party politics are devoid of debate about policies, support
for issue-based campaigns targeted to promote children’s
rights and students’ rights or to address citizens’
concerns about the human and financial costs of the war in Chechnya
are especially important. Above all else, Western organizations
involved in promoting democracy in Russia must recognize the new
political context inside Russia which has evolved under Putin
and not continue to implement the same programs they followed
a decade ago.
Cutting funding for
exchange programs and scholarships is also dangerously short-sighted,
since it is this first post-communist generation — that
is, those who came of age well after the Soviet Union had collapsed
— who will determine Russia’s long-term political
trajectory. These Russian students are America’s natural
allies in developing democracy within Russia. Moreover, the United
States has no greater asset for promoting democracy than the example
of our own society.
In addition, the United
States should devote greater resources to developing higher education
within Russia, with special emphasis on establishing public-policy
schools and the development of political science as a discipline.
Russia now boasts several topnotch business schools, as well as
first-rate departments of economics. Russian students have many
options available to them if they want to learn about market institutions,
but the same cannot be said about the study of democratic institutions.
Subsidizing internet access inside Russia is another powerful
tool for promoting democracy within Russia and integrating Russian
society into the West.
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8
See George Shultz, Turmoil and Triumph: Diplomacy, Power, and
the Victory of the American Ideal (Simon & Schuster, 1993),
chapter 18.
9
Condoleezza Rice, “Exercising Power Without Arrogance,”
Chicago Tribune (December 31, 2000).
