Why Doesn’t America Recognize Putin?

Barack Obama still has not gotten around to congratulating him on winning the presidential elections in Russia

Barack Obama has not yet bothered to congratulate Vladimir Putin for his victory in the Russian presidential elections. The only thing that the U.S. has condescended to was a statement by official State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland (posted on the State Department's website), in which she congratulated "the Russian people" on completion of the elections and expressed Washington's readiness to work with the new president. But she managed not to recognize Vladimir Putin, the clear winner of those elections, even once by name.

Yes, Nuland cited the fact that the head of the delegation from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) stated that the Russian elections had a "clear winner with an absolute majority." She also remarked on steps that Russia's Central Election Commission took to increase the transparency of the voting process. But despite all of that, Victoria Nuland clearly has not thawed. Instead, she actually demanded that the Russian side conduct a thorough investigation into the reports of irregularities in the course of the voting.

"We urge the Russian government to conduct an independent, credible investigation of all reported electoral violations," Nuland announced. "The United States congratulates the Russian people on the completion of the Presidential elections, and looks forward to working with the President-elect after the results are certified and he is sworn in." Thus, Putin will still have to wait a while for personal congratulations from Obama — if it ever comes.

Among the greatest actors on the world stage, the U.S., incidentally, was the only one that did not completely recognize Putin's victory. The official site of the Russian government already began to compile congratulations from the leaders of various countries, received in the name of the current Russian prime minister. There are already congratulations from almost all of the governments of the Commonwealth of Independent States, and from the Chairman of the People's Republic of China, Hu Jintao. The heads of Russia's neighboring countries — Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan — sent their congratulations. From faraway Venezuela, Hugo Chavez congratulated Putin. Moreover, leaders of the key countries of Western Europe — German Chancellor Angela Merkel, British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy — have also already congratulated Putin, recognizing him for his victory. But not the U.S.

However, the reaction of the greatest Western countries to Putin's victory was still cautious. Although President Sarkozy congratulated Putin, France's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alain Juppe, was much more guarded in his words. The BBC reports: "Putin has been re-elected by a large majority, so France, and her European partners, will pursue its partnership with Russia."

Catherine Ashton, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, was also guarded. "The EU takes note of the preliminary results of the presidential elections and the clear victory of Vladimir Putin," she said in her announcement. Just like U.S. State Department representative Victoria Nuland, the head of the EU's diplomatic corps also urged Russian authorities to investigate violations which were noted during the elections.

Such a reaction from the West — from recognition "muttering through the teeth" on the part of the EU countries to the complete personal disregard of Putin on the part of the U.S. — is, of course, not accidental. For the West, the new-old president of Russia is clearly a less convenient partner than Medvedev, to whom the West attached hopes of a "Perestroika 2" in Russia.

However, are the West's fears really justified concerning Vladimir Putin's second ascension to the Russian "throne?" Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister, Sergei Ryabkov, announced today that under the new president, Russia will "maintain continuity of its foreign policy toward America." The Russian diplomat points out that "all decisions taken in such directions, such as arms control and WTO accession, were taken with the participation of the president-elect."

So why is the U.S. unsatisfied if Russia, with the tacit agreement of Putin (and maybe with his direct participation), over the course of the past four years (while he was playing the role of the "Grey Cardinal" of Russian politics), continued its course of integration into Western civilization and thus ceded its own position of Russian civilization? Are they unhappy that under Medvedev, the "Westernization" of Russia, its absorption by the West, could proceed more quickly and with less cost to the West? In this sense of course, the West's current position concerning Putin has any reasonable excuse. As for the rest, if the general course of rearranging Russia according to a Western template is maintained, then the Americans and the Europeans are worrying unnecessarily. After all, in this case, sooner or later Russia will still be subdued by the West and merge into its periphery.

But in the case that Putin, on the basis of having received a mandate during the elections as a national demand to stop the sale of Russia to the West, undertakes a revision of the formerly pro-Western course, then the Americans and Europeans will actually have something to worry about. Russia with its vast resources will sail out from under their noses. Isn't that what the West fears the most now? But for that kind of fear, you have to agree, one must still fantasize quite a bit. After all, the "continuity of policy" of the Russian authorities — despite possible corrections — is official.