Reload Overload

Former Minister of Foreign Affairs Igor Ivanov Writing Especially for Kommersant:

In November, after the United States refused to give Moscow legal guarantees that its missile defense system will not be directed against Russia, and Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced an assortment of retaliatory military measures, most experts considered the reset in relations between the two countries dead. In the opinion of the former head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Igor Ivanov (1998-2004), Moscow and Washington are obligated to reverse the negative dynamic forming in their relationship; otherwise, the relationship will return to the model of rivalry bordering on confrontation.

In Russia, for some reason, optimism is rarely in fashion. Whether our climate is unsuitable or a complicated historical past makes itself felt, we traditionally regard optimism with prejudice, considering it a qualitative sign of either political engagement or intellectual deficit. Pessimism, in contrast, is perceived as an indication of a sharp mind and independent judgment.

And now, when we were just starting to see practical results of the U.S.-Russian reset, the individual voices of the enthusiasts have been drowned amid the discord of the skeptics. From the pages of newspapers and the screens of televisions, there are calls not to delude ourselves, not to place excessive hopes on a thaw between Moscow and Washington, but to focus on the fundamental differences in positions on many principal issues. Advice is given not to indulge in illusions concerning possible prospects of cooperation between Russia and the U.S., either for the duration of 2012 — a politically complicated year for both governments — or in the longer term.

Curiously, in their skepticism, our “patriots” have unexpectedly joined with their opposition, the “liberals.” The “patriots” believe that to hope for a partnership with the U.S. is the height of folly, because the American ruling class always was, is and will be hostile to Russia, no matter who is in the White House. The “patriots” think that Russophobia is in America’s blood, or in any case, in the blood of the U.S. political elite.

The “liberals” are pessimistic for another reason. The Kremlin, in their opinion, is simply not prepared for a serious dialogue with the U.S., because, traditionally, they use references to the “hostile external environment,” thus diverting public attention.

One must keep both points of view in mind. However, without going into the finer points of this polemic, it is possible to confidently say that the inertia of negative dynamics in the U.S.-Russian relationship remains at a high level. As a result, even a “mini-crisis,” having taken place in our relationship in recent times, could get overblown into a serious confrontation. And it is not so important what particular events provoked the worsening of the relationship — conflict in the Caucasus or elections in Ukraine, NATO intervention in Yugoslavia or war in Iraq, the pullout of the U.S. from the missile defense agreement or the Khodorkovsky case. All of them show that we are dealing with a persistent tendency.

Although Russia ceased to be Washington’s global competitor at the end of the Cold War, for many in both Russia and in America, confrontation remains the natural state of the relationship between our countries. The black-and-white view of the world is the only possibility (or, at least, the only morally acceptable one). The confrontation is maintained by psychology, habit, personal complexes, bureaucratic mechanisms and finally, very influential interests.

The situation today is even more complicated than it was during the time of the Cold War. Then, at least, Moscow and Washington had a mechanism, developed over decades, of bilateral talks and consultations; both sides understood the foundation on which our relationship was built. Now, that foundation has been destroyed, and a new one, unfortunately, has not been established. Efforts undertaken to establish such a foundation in view of multi-functional, inter-governmental structures (the Chernomyrdin-Gore Commission, the Medvedev-Obama Presidential Commission) can hardly be called successful. We could not even establish a multi-layered foundation for a partnership, which might have mitigated our conflicting positions on various issues in the modern world. Suffice it to say that Russia receives less than 1 percent of U.S. foreign trade and export of capital, and the U.S. share of Russia’s foreign trade is less than 4 percent. As they say, no further comment needed.

As a result, our relationship still depends on the political state of affairs, and even such an apparent achievement of the reset as the New START is under threat. Of course, even if Moscow and Washington cannot manage to agree on the missile defense issues, a new Cold War will not begin; neither the White House nor the Kremlin are interested in that. Moreover, there is a basis to believe that, even if faced with possible problems in the bilateral relationship, Moscow and Washington will de facto observe the New START, or, at least, the part relating to the reduction of their nuclear potential. A new arms race between Russia and the U.S. seems highly unlikely, considering budget deficits and economic and other national security issues not directly related to their strategic nuclear arsenals.

Nevertheless, the absence of progress on the missile defense issue is very serious. After three years of this new approach to Russian-American relations, cooperation in the sphere of strategic security remains the reset’s most significant outcome. Accomplishments in the sphere of regional security include the Afghanistan transit route, cooperation on Iranian and North Korean nuclear issues, the Middle East — all of these are tactical issues, not strategic ones. These agreements, for all their significance, are much easier to review and change than the New START.

Cooperation in the strategic sphere is its own type of indicator of the state of the relationship between our two countries. Whether we want it or not, failure in this area will be interpreted by many in Russia and the U.S., and even across the whole world, as the breaking point in the relationship, as the end of its rising development and the beginning of the slide toward the traditional model of competition bordering on confrontation. In both countries, there are influential forces who never truly believed in the reset, who for the last three years just waited for the trend to reverse and who use any opportunity to return the relationship between Moscow and Washington to its habitual (in their view) channels. The failure of efforts to reach a compromise on missile defense is a signal to all skeptics, all conservatives, all Cold Warriors not yet demobilized, that their time has returned — that in the grand scheme of things, nothing must ever change in the relationship between Moscow and Washington, and our countries are forever destined to oppose each other, regardless of any détentes and resets.

What must be done, to prevent this scenario from becoming reality? We need to significantly broaden the positive agenda of our relationship. Even if it is not focused on traditional issues of security, there are many other possible points of joint cooperation: From energy to innovation, from education and science to reform of systems of international organizations, and so on. One must admit that in all of these areas, the success of the reset has been more than modest. But over the last three years, there was never any significant breakthrough in Russian-American economic and humanitarian ties, and we did not succeed in establishing a natural dialogue between our countries’ representatives of civil society.

One may love America or not; there are various opinions on American economics and American society as a whole. But from a realistic viewpoint, one must accept the obvious: For the foreseeable future, the “American dimension” will figure in any important area of Russian foreign policy. Global security and international rights, regional stability and stability of the world’s monetary and financial systems, actions against terrorism and prevention of proliferation of nuclear weapons, food security and climate change — in all of these and many other issues, we will have to cooperate with the Americans in one way or another. Even if we decided to completely fence ourselves off from Washington and focus on developing relations with our own closest neighbors — the countries of the CIS, China, the European Union and so on — we would still bump up against the U.S. factor at every step. And without the partnership of Russia, Washington would find it much more difficult to resolve the issues of greatest interest to itself.

Antonio Gramsci once authored a remarkable formula: “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will.” Only the political will of both parties can break the emerging negative dynamic in U.S.-Russian relations. Moreover, the efforts of the political leadership of both governments will obviously be insufficient. This will require the coordinated and sustained efforts of politicians, businessmen, journalists and experts. Only together can we build the relationship worthy of our two great countries. Now is not the time for collision of personal ambitions and the clarification of the relationship; the stakes of this game are too high.