US Helps Russia End Slave Trade

The U.S. government took a step that is considered by many foreign experts as another round of the Cold War. For the first time, Russia was included on the list of countries that ignore efforts to combat human trafficking. According to the U.S. Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (trafficking is the trade in humans for the purpose of forced labor), the Americans are planning on developing a set of sanctions against Russia by Oct. 1. The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already remarked on this “unacceptable methodological approach” that is based not on common sense but on political antipathy.

Obviously, this new American initiative is nothing but the extension of the scandal surrounding the notorious Magnitsky list in which Russia, according to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will not follow instructions that were formulated by a foreign government. We can only guess what this tension between our countries will develop into, but it is clear that both sides are going to act determinedly and profoundly.

It’s useless to number the recent initiatives of parliamentarians and the Russian government that have been issued to fight human trafficking, or to ask the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation to provide data about the number of criminal cases that were opened within last two years — many of them, in fact, as the result of collaboration between Russian and American organizations. The important thing is that, according to Putin, the U.S. became a victim of its own leadership and continues to impose its own decisions instead of cooperating on equal footing and seeking for compromise. All these imperial ambitions underlie the complicated moments in current Russian-American relations. But this story didn’t begin today, or even a year ago.

Stephen Cohen, professor at Columbia University and one of the most well-known American experts in Russia and the former Soviet Union republics, fairly suggests that a new Cold War began when the USSR collapsed — when American transitologists literally flooded the new state from bottom to top, and the first steps of Yeltsin’s Russia were dictated by “experts” in periods of transition from authoritarianism to democracy. Our citizens are well aware of what recipes manufactured in a foreign country become. But in early 2000, the rejection of the “Washington party committee” (as Cohen named it) triggered this somewhat negative U.S. reaction toward the Russian government and Russian society.

It is to be recalled that among today’s experts in transitional periods from socialism to democracy (primarily American), there is no unambiguous opinion about the character and the type of events that cause the collapse of a superpower. Nor is there an answer to the question of in which direction the former socialistic countries and former USSR republics must develop. According to the leading academics in the U.S., the only thing we can say for sure is that the development is moving in an unknown and odd direction, definitely far from the Anglo-Saxon model of liberal democracy; all we can do is watch, but not regulate, Russian domestic policy.

It is clear that the problem of human trafficking in today’s Russia stems from the uncontrolled crush of any legal and social institutions in all former Soviet Union republics. It would be naïve to expect that the slave trade situation and its main element — human trafficking — could be resolved in a couple of years, especially by Russia’s efforts alone. It will take years to regulate cooperation among former USSR states; even a little bit of pressure and interference in domestic and foreign policy will cause aggravation in already complicated relations in the region. Voluntarily or not, Russia became a place for refugees from former Soviet Union countries and the countries of “Old Asia.” Now they live, work and earn money here, which is saved to support their families back home.

It would be naïve to expect that after massive historic changes throughout a sixth of the planet, the stream of migrants would be able to enjoy the same rights that are common in developed nations. It is impossible to fix intergovernmental mechanisms by passing laws — we are talking about our former fellow countrymen, whom we are related to historically.

The increase of anti-American sentiment in the world is obvious even to the U.S. Its foreign policy — which is fundamentally meant to support democratic initiatives in any country, all kinds of oppositional movements and the rights of citizens and minorities — brews escalation of tension in these societies mainly because of the arrogant interference of the overseas empire. The same is about to happen in Russian society as a response to the recent American initiative aimed to fight the slave trade. It was based on U.S. federal law, but for some reason it allows the U.S. to impose international sanctions based on its own evaluation system.

Our recent history taught us a lot of things, primarily the realization of objective limits of our own power and international influence. More importantly, it brought us to realize that the forced expansion of one’s ideology can cause unpredictable consequences, both for the “donor” and for those “lucky ones” whom are given the recipes for domestic and foreign development. Unfortunately, looking at the history of U.S. foreign affairs teaches us that nothing can be taught. This is especially true when a government and a people are guided by an ideology — no matter how perfect it may seem to its founders.