Russia-US: Who Is in Need of Strategic Pause?

The conference “Russia as a Global Power: Contending Views from Russia” took place last week, with participation by leading experts, in George Washington University’s Elliot Center in Washington. Out of a large number of topics discussed during the conference, I would like to highlight three of the most important for understanding the state of minds of politicians, as well as experts in Washington and Moscow to a degree.

The first topic that attracted the most attention dealt with perspectives on the “reset” policy, which according to the opinion of Russian, as well as American, experts, has come to an end. One of the reasons — and it mainly coincides with my position — is that the “reset” policy itself is not clear and was interpreted differently in Moscow and Washington. This is why it could not serve as a substantial basis for President Vladimir Putin’s policy, especially because he inherited it from Dmitry Medvedev.

On the other hand, some U.S. experts believe that the policy has come to an end because it has exhausted its agenda, meaning that Russia and the U.S. have reached the limit of their possible agreements in the area of arms control by signing the for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty III, as well as their agreements on Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear program, Syria, the North Korean nuclear crisis and on an entire number of other issues, and that is why Russia-U.S. relations require a new agenda.

However, the second topic of discussion, in fact, questioned the claim of experts that the old agenda had exhausted itself. As noted by Paul Saunders, one of the leading experts on Russia-U.S. relations and executive director of Center for the National Interest, Russia is not on the list of the ten most important issues the U.S. administration faces today and, by itself, this is indeed a comforting fact. During the course of the discussion, in part, Saunders supported my position that Russia not only does not present a serious issue in the scheme of U.S. foreign policy, but also acts as a factor capable of resolving those problems.

However, there was no unity among U.S. and Russian participants on this issue. A number of experts claimed that Russia, most likely, is a responsible partner to the U.S., and if it does not accept Washington’s position toward Iran in its entirety, or North Korea and Syria, this is not because it is trying to sabotage the U.S., but simply because it relies on its own understanding of the possible negative consequences of a more radical U.S. policy. On the contrary, opponents of this point of view perceive Russia’s actions as an expression of anti-Americanism and as attempts to hinder the U.S. and the West in achieving foreign policy goals toward issues of such importance to them.

The third issue, surrounded by heated discussion, was related to the question of whether an elaboration of a new agenda for Russia-U.S. relations by the Obama administration and Putin is needed right now, or whether a strategic pause should take place at this stage, as I had suggested in a March 2012 article, right after Putin won the presidential elections, and as Leon Aron (former head adviser to Mitt Romney on Russia during the 2012 presidential election campaign) suggested in his recent Foreign Affairs article “The Putin Doctrine,” which attracted a lot of attention from the political community in the U.S. However, it should be noted, that the recommendation made by Aron to take a strategic pause seems quite strange for both parties, which have to do some serious thinking on where they can compromise. Meanwhile, Aron thinks that positive cooperation must continue on the Iranian nuclear issue, Afghanistan, Syria and nuclear weapons nonproliferation.

The U.S. administration must continue to stick to democracy propagation, including in Russia, and therefore, it must interfere with the internal affairs of our country. And as Aron notes in his article, such policy is for the sake of the protection of human rights and civil society:

“The emergence of a free, democratic, stable and prosperous Russia would be enormously beneficial to the United States, so assisting this process ought to be the overarching priority of U.S. policy.”

I believe that this quasi-recommendation in favor of the pause is more likely a recommendation for the escalation of tensions between Washington and Moscow.

Sometime ago, the George Bush administration’s strategic pause toward Gorbachev brought about overwhelming results for the U.S. Bewildered and confused by growing chaos in the Soviet Union, Gorbachev was unable to understand and adequately evaluate the U.S. administration’s pause and made one foreign policy mistake after another because of his own inconsistent policy. The U.S. only had to wait for the “client to mature” to [the Soviet Union’s] total collapse, which is exactly what happened.

Nowadays, a strategic pause can only be beneficial to Russia. Today, the Russian government is much more consolidated and self-confident; there are no extraordinary challenges within our country nor outside of it, and it can afford to abide by the pause while the U.S. determines its global strategy and new agenda.

Really, though, it is unlikely that the U.S. administration has the time and ability to honor a pause. The opinion that government in Washington is dysfunctional, circulating in American media and political circles, has become a parable. A more illustrative example of this is Congress not even being able to adopt a budget for the country. The economy is recovering very slowly after the crisis: The unemployment level is extremely high, and the sequestration of spending on a variety of needs, happening right before our very eyes, exacerbates the political struggle between Republicans and Democrats. Add to that severe challenges from the outside that require an immediate reaction, including the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan with unknown consequences for that country; the uncertainty of the fate of the Iraqi state as a direct result of the occupation, as well as the withdrawal of U.S. troops; and the continuation of the Iranian nuclear program, which requires an immediate and adequate reaction from the Obama administration. Israel, the U.S.’ old strategic partner, as well as influential political circles within the U.S., expect that from the administration. The aggressive nuclear missile ambitions of North Korea, which are increasing instability in South Asia and the Asia-Pacific region, require an urgent reaction as well. The list of challenges that require the U.S. administration’s prompt and adequate response can go on and on.

Following everything we have said, we can conclude that of the two countries — Russia and the U.S. — one can afford to take a strategic pause, and it is obviously not the U.S.