Notes from the Basement

Stephen Cohen has written an excellent piece on America’s wrong-headed (and dangerous) approach to Russia, well worth reading in its entirety. I’ll cut to the chase and quote the end. After noting areas in which Russia is still capable of pushing back against the US, Cohen writes:

American crusaders insist it is worth the risk in order to democratize Russia and other former Soviet republics. In reality, their campaigns since 1992 have only discredited that cause in Russia. Praising the despised Yeltsin and endorsing other unpopular figures as Russia’s “democrats,” while denouncing the popular Putin, has associated democracy with the social pain, chaos and humiliation of the 1990s. Ostracizing Belarus President Aleksandr Lukashenko while embracing tyrants in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan has related it to the thirst for oil. Linking “democratic revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia to NATO membership has equated them with US expansionism. Focusing on the victimization of billionaire Mikhail Khodorkhovsky and not on Russian poverty or ongoing mass protests against social injustices has suggested democracy is only for oligarchs. And by insisting on their indispensable role, US crusaders have all but said (wrongly) that Russians are incapable of democracy or resisting abuses of power on their own.

The result is dark Russian suspicions of American intentions ignored by US policy-makers and media alike. They include the belief that Washington’s real purpose is to take control of the country’s energy resources and nuclear weapons and use encircling NATO satellite states to “de-sovereignize” Russia, turning it into a “vassal of the West.” More generally, US policy has fostered the belief that the American cold war was never really aimed at Soviet Communism but always at Russia, a suspicion given credence by Post and Times columnists who characterize Russia even after Communism as an inherently “autocratic state” with “brutish instincts.”

To overcome those towering obstacles to a new relationship, Washington has to abandon the triumphalist conceits primarily responsible for the revived cold war and its growing dangers. It means respecting Russia’s sovereign right to determine its course at home (including disposal of its energy resources). As the record plainly shows, interfering in Moscow’s internal affairs, whether on-site or from afar, only harms the chances for political liberties and economic prosperity that still exist in that tormented nation.

It also means acknowledging Russia’s legitimate security interests, especially in its own “near abroad.” In particular, the planned third expansion of NATO, intended to include Ukraine, must not take place. Extending NATO to Russia’s doorsteps has already brought relations near the breaking point (without actually benefiting any nation’s security); absorbing Ukraine, which Moscow regards as essential to its Slavic identity and its military defense, may be the point of no return, as even pro-US Russians anxiously warn. Nor would it be democratic, since nearly two-thirds of Ukrainians are opposed. The explosive possibilities were adumbrated in late May and early June when local citizens in ethnic Russian Crimea blockaded a port and roads where a US naval ship and contingent of Marines suddenly appeared, provoking resolutions declaring the region “anti-NATO territory” and threats of “a new Vietnam.”

Time for a new US policy is running out, but there is no hint of one in official or unofficial circles. Denouncing the Kremlin in May, Cheney spoke “like a triumphant cold warrior,” a Times correspondent reported. A top State Department official has already announced the “next great mission” in and around Russia. In the same unreconstructed spirit, Rice has demanded Russians “recognize that we have legitimate interests … in their neighborhood,” without a word about Moscow’s interests; and a former Clinton official has held the Kremlin “accountable for the ominous security threats … developing between NATO’s eastern border and Russia.” Meanwhile, the Bush Administration is playing Russian roulette with Moscow’s control of its nuclear weapons. Its missile shield project having already provoked a destabilizing Russian buildup, the Administration now proposes to further confuse Moscow’s early-warning system, risking an accidental launch, by putting conventional warheads on long-range missiles for the first time.

In a democracy we might expect alternative policy proposals from would-be leaders. But there are none in either party, only demands for a more anti-Russian course, or silence. We should not be surprised. Acquiescence in Bush’s monstrous war in Iraq has amply demonstrated the political elite’s limited capacity for introspection, independent thought and civic courage. (It prefers to falsely blame the American people, as the managing editor of Foreign Affairs recently did, for craving “ideological red meat.”) It may also be intimidated by another revived cold war practice—personal defamation. The Post and The New Yorker have already labeled critics of their Russia policy “Putin apologists” and charged them with “appeasement” and “again taking the Russian side of the Cold War.”

The vision and courage of heresy will therefore be needed to escape today’s new cold war orthodoxies and dangers, but it is hard to imagine a US politician answering the call. There is, however, a not-too-distant precedent. Twenty years ago, when the world faced exceedingly grave cold war perils, Gorbachev unexpectedly emerged from the orthodox and repressive Soviet political class to offer a heretical way out. Is there an American leader today ready to retrieve that missed opportunity?