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The U.S. and Russia

During my 60-plus trips to Russia over the last 20 years, I’ve noticed how Russian attitudes toward the U.S. — once relatively friendly — have evolved. Today, dislike — even hatred — of America leads some Russian national security officials to believe that if you are an enemy of the U.S. (e.g., Venezuela, Iran), you […]

During my 60-plus trips to Russia over the last 20 years, I’ve noticed how Russian attitudes toward the U.S. — once relatively friendly — have evolved. Today, dislike — even hatred — of America leads some Russian national security officials to believe that if you are an enemy of the U.S. (e.g., Venezuela, Iran), you must be a friend of Russia. Most are not so dogmatic, but they also are not America’s friends. Their [Russian national security officials’] philosophical embrace of something akin to Mussolini’s corporate state, plus their ambitions for increased influence in, or annexation of, former Soviet territory, practically ensures they will hold negative feelings about the American government. After all, we believe in an open society and the independence and sanctity of borders of the former Soviet states. ~Herman Pirchner

One of the problems with this is that an “open society” very often means something very different when “we” are promoting it in former Soviet republics. So long as the government is filled with anti-Russian nationalists, the openness of society is very much a secondary consideration. Our government has made a habit of encouraging political forces in ex-Soviet republics that are hostile to Russia and assuming that hostility to Russia is proof of “pro-Western” credentials. In the Russian experience, proponents of an “open society” have tended to be people who also want to promote U.S. goals at the expense of Russian influence. To the extent that the Russian government has made a point of strengthening ties with states Washington dislikes, it is partly engaging in a tit-for-tat retaliation for past provocations. It is partly pursuing its own interests without regard for our relationship with those governments. Properly speaking, the national security officials of other governments are never going to be America’s “friends.” If we are foolish enough to believe that such officials other governments, even in formally allied governments, are our “friends,” our excessive trust in them will be abused. If we have national security officials interested in improving relations with Russia, it is not because they are “friends of Russia,” but because they see an improved U.S.-Russian relationship as a way of advancing concrete American interests.

That brings us to Pirchner’s claim that “we” believe in “independence and sanctity of borders of the former Soviet states.” For a few of those states (the Baltics), the United States has formal treaty obligations to defend them against attack, but for most of the former Soviet states our belief in the “sanctity” of Soviet-era borders doesn’t mean very much. The United States would not go to war with Russia to defend the “independence and sanctity of borders” of most of these states, and to do so would be extremely irrational. The U.S. has no vital interest at stake in most of these states. If Russian influence in these states creates a conflict with the U.S., it is because we have insisted on making the affairs of these ex-Soviet states our business.

Viewed another way, these officials may have “negative feelings” about our government because our government has seemed intent on blocking and pushing back Russian influence in what they consider to be their normal sphere of influence. One need only imagine the aggravation Russia would cause among American officials if Russians presumed to lecture them about respecting the “independence and sanctity of borders” of Caribbean and Latin American nations. The comparison is not exact, since Russian nationalists still view some former Soviet states in the same way that American nationalists view the Southwest. Were our positions reversed, does anyone suppose that Washington would be indifferent to Russian support for independent states of Texas or California?

Pirchner continues:

Russia’s dominant geopolitical idea, then, is neither friends nor enemies — only interests.

In other words, the Russian government is behaving as states normally behave. Instead of complaining about this, we would be well-advised to pursue American interests with much less sentimental and ideological baggage than we do today.

When they are not baseless, many of Pirchner’s specific complaints about administration policy towards Russia are based on just this sort of baggage. Pirchner claims that the missile defense decision devalued “American promises worldwide,” which is debatable, but he then repeats discredited objections to New START when ratification of the treaty (along with its supposedly pro-Russian language) was strongly favored by NATO allied governments, including allies from eastern Europe. Had New START ratification failed, it would have done far more to devalue American promises and to ignore the concerns of American allies in Europe, and yet this is implicitly what Pirchner would have preferred. In general, the “reset” has enhanced eastern European security by reducing U.S.-Russian tensions, and it has created conditions that have not only seen a thaw in Russian-Ukrainian relations, but even a modest beginning of Polish-Russian rapprochement. It isn’t true that the administration’s behavior in Ukraine and Georgia has been “increasingly passive.” Anyone paying attention knows that this administration has made a point of condemning what it calls the Russian occupation of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

What is surprising about Pirchner’s article is that the rest of it might as well have been written by someone else. Pirchner emphasizes shared U.S. and Russian interests in Central Asia and specifically in Kyrgyzstan, and he drives home the futility of trying to bring the separatist republics back under Georgian control. He claims that the expansion of Russian influence in Ukraine is contrary to U.S. interests, but this is simply asserted. In his concluding paragraph, he states:

Today, an increasingly closed Russia is driven by thoughts of greater influence in, or absorption of, the Christian parts of its former empire. This puts Moscow at odds with Washington in spite of common interests that include the fight against radical Islam, anti-proliferation initiatives, space cooperation, and nuclear cooperation.

What remains entirely unclear is why this puts Moscow at odds with Washington. The U.S. has no stake in blocking Russia’s “greater influence in, or absorption of, the Christian parts of its former empire.” Why should we be putting all those common interests at risk for the sake of unnecessary commitments where we have no interests?

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