Moscow Welcomes Michael McFaul's Nomination as U.S. Ambassador to Russia

Moscow welcomes Barack Obama’s intention to appoint Michael McFaul as U.S. ambassador to Russia. In Russia he is well known; they hope that the new ambassador will successfully move bilateral relations forward. Moreover, experts are confident that Washington will pursue other practical goals in the future.

President Barack Obama submitted Michael McFaul’s candidacy for congressional consideration as the next U.S. ambassador to Russia, but the term of his appointment remains an open question. So far there has been no comment from either the White House or the Senate on the possible date that Congress will consider McFaul’s “resume,” although information leaked from the administrative apparatus of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations indicates that his confirmation “has every chance to be quick.” However, in Russian diplomatic circles, they see things somewhat differently. According to Alexander Lukashevich, spokesperson of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “what lies ahead is not the simplest passage of a candidacy.” Indeed, paying attention to the quality and quantity of the apportionment of allies and opponents of Barack Obama among the American senators, the passage of the candidacy will not be easy.

Consider that the 47-year-old McFaul is known in Washington as a staunch supporter of Obama’s policies. Currently, he serves as a special assistant to the president, as a senior director of Russian and Eurasian regional affairs on the National Security Council. A professor at Stanford University, Michael McFaul is considered one of the greatest Russian specialists in the United States, and has written books on international relations and on the development of democratic governance. Moreover, he is considered the architect of the “reset” policy in the relationship between Washington and Moscow and the co-author of the complete text of the New START treaty.

In Russian political circles, the candidacy of the future American ambassador is favorably regarded. “McFaul knows us well, he is an authoritative professional,” they say in the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “The current ambassador, Mr. Beyrle, managed to establish very good working contacts in Moscow, which has helped the development of our bilateral relationship. We have great hope that such continuity will be maintained in the future,” they say in the Russian foreign ministry.

In the Duma, they give McFaul a similar appraisal. Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Foreign Affairs, says that McFaul “actively worked to develop relations between our countries and always did so conscientiously and creatively. Therefore, in the capacity of the new U.S. ambassador to Russia, Mr. McFaul will have every opportunity to move the Russian-American relationship forward.”

Political analysts are also confident that along with this appointment, Washington will pursue other pragmatic goals. “In Barack Obama’s choice regarding McFaul, one can detect some basic things,” said Maksim Minaev, a leading expert of the Center of Political Affairs. According to Minaev, the White House is experiencing a sharp deficit of information about specifics of the relations within the Russian governing elite, and “the new appointment… of a professional Russian specialist must fill in this gap.”

“McFaul, having that direct connection to the White House, surpassing even that of the secretary of state, must be able to assure a reliable transfer of information from Moscow to Washington about the election situation in Russia,” said Minaev.

We note that Michael McFaul is the first “political appointee” in the last 30 years, as he is not a professional diplomat (it is understood that he will become one in the fullest sense after his confirmation to the new post by Congress). As The New York Times writes, Obama “is breaking with recent tradition in Moscow, where all but one of eight American ambassadors over the last 30 years have been career diplomats,” and there is a certain logic in that. Most so-called “career diplomats of the foreign service” are technicians.

As for “political appointees” like McFaul, they are able to react to a number of strategies with a much deeper situational analysis. Usually the White House prefers to keep them on hand. However, with this appointment, they evidently came to understand that they have chronically failed to grasp information about specific events of the political processes in Moscow and relationships within the Russian government, particularly in the upper echelons of authority. The Russian presidential elections are right around the corner, and they are solving this problem with the help of that tried-and-true means of the Cold War era: the “political appointee.”

However, we must pay attention to yet another element in the nomination of McFaul, and that is that he will leave the White House immediately before the primary phase of the U.S. election campaign. As Maksim Minaev supposes, “Barack Obama is beginning to ‘ensconce’ his team members in positions from which they must not be removed after November 2012.” In the specialist’s opinion, this is a “pretty symptomatic action.” Obama is not discounting the possibility that he might lose the election, and therefore is rushing to secure members of his own future political team.

Actually, if the occupant of the Oval Office wanted to receive deep and detailed information on the specifics of the Russian parliamentary elections, he could have “recalled” John Beyrle, who currently heads up the U.S. diplomatic mission in Russia, even at the beginning of this year. However, Obama has not rushed to do so until now. And if the Senate confirms Michael McFaul’s candidacy at the end of September, then he would arrive in Moscow in October at the earliest. That amount of time is obviously not enough to fully grasp the Russian parliamentary elections. But of course the presidential elections are more important.*

*Translator’s Note: The Russian parliamentary elections are to be held on Dec. 4, 2011, with the presidential election on March 4, 2012.