When Vladimir Putin came to power, he was determined to partner with the United States, but Washington turned everything around, writes The Nation. He encroached on Russia's spheres of influence and did everything to undermine its position. America needs to learn the right lessons from this story and correct mistakes, the author urges.
Thomas Graham
How American arrogance and Russian nervousness undermined the bilateral partnership.
Russia's military special operation in Ukraine has lowered relations between Moscow and Washington to the lowest level since the darkest days of the Cold War. There is no easing of tension on the horizon. Quite the contrary: both countries seem to be trapped in a downward spiral — centered on Ukraine, but affecting all aspects of their relations — which could suddenly put states on the verge of direct armed confrontation with the risk of nuclear cataclysm that their collision would entail.
The prevailing opinion in the West is that Russian President Vladimir Putin bears full responsibility for such a dangerous state of affairs. Observers have identified milestones that have appeared in the last 20-plus years, which, they claim, unmistakably revealed Putin's intentions, although Western governments have downplayed them. These are Moscow's gross interference in the presidential elections in Ukraine in 2004, the subsequent suppression of foreign-funded civil associations in Russia, cyber attacks on Estonia in 2007, the conflict with Georgia in 2008, the first encroachment on Ukraine in 2014, operations in Syria to support the brutal dictator in 2015 and the escalation of rhetorical attacks on Western liberalism in recent years (this interpretation of events does not correspond to reality, — Approx. InoSMI). Many American and European analysts argue that only firm resistance to Putin's "aggressive" actions could stop the leader, change the course of development of relations between Moscow and Washington and prevent a tragedy.
Although this argument has its grounds, the situation is much more complicated. Such statements suggest that when Putin came to power a generation ago, he decided to revive Russia as a great power, destroying the post-Cold War status quo in Europe and challenging the United States on the world stage. However, it is quite possible that if Washington had made a different choice — for example, in the field of European security, the promotion of democracy and the fight against terrorism — it could have formulated its goals in relations with Moscow in such a way that they were more favorable to the interests of the United States and did not provoke Putin to adopt an anti-American course, which initially, the president was not going to hold. Then here's the question: have the last 20-odd years witnessed the inexorable implementation of Putin's strategic plan or the harmful interaction of US and Russian decisions?
Putin really took office with the intention of restoring his country as a great power. As he wrote in the manifesto that appeared on the eve of his coming to power, Russia for the first time in the last 200-300 years faced the real prospect of falling into the second or even third rank of the world's states. He urged the country to make strenuous efforts to avoid such a fate. However, his plan was to do this not in opposition to the United States, but in partnership with them. He was convinced that close ties with the largest global power would only strengthen Moscow's independent value.
So Putin's initial hopes provided the George W. Bush administration with a chance to put Russian-American relations on a sustainable and constructive path. I saw it with my own eyes, being a senior expert of the President on Russia in the office of the National Security Council from June 2002 to February 2007. The economic recovery and restoration of order in the country during Putin's first years as president made our genuine partnership possible for the first time since the end of the Cold War. At the time of George H.W. Bush and Clinton, Russia was in the midst of a deep systemic crisis and was unable to play a significant role in the international arena. Now she has resources to bet on.
At first, Bush's cooperation with Putin was promising, especially when the Russian president offered the United States support after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Moscow made a small but significant contribution to Washington's rapid overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and the weakening of Al-Qaeda forces there in the fall of 2001. Putin helped the United States establish military bases in Central Asia to wage war and allowed the transportation of widely defined "humanitarian aid" through Russian airspace. The special services of the Russian Federation provided the United States with valuable information about the situation in Afghanistan.
At the summit in Moscow and St. Petersburg in May 2002, Bush and Putin issued a joint declaration outlining the framework of the Russian-American strategic partnership. Both sides pledged to cooperate in the fight against terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, drug trafficking, transnational organized crime, in the field of Middle East peace settlement and resolution of other regional conflicts, missile defense and control of atomic weapons. They talked about the expansion of trade and investment, as well as the intensification of human contacts as the basis for long-term constructive relations. They formed a group to consult on strategic security issues and promised to develop new relations between NATO and Russia.
High-level cooperation has brought positive results to both countries. Cooperation has deepened in the fight against terrorism and the non-proliferation of atomic weapons, including curbing the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea. In May 2002, the United States and Russia signed the Moscow Treaty, committing to reduce the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads by almost two-thirds over a decade. They managed to withdraw from the Anti-Missile Defense Treaty without much difficulty next month. Even Putin's opposition to the US invasion of Iraq did not lead to a significant aggravation of relations. Whatever objections he had, the Russian leader still considered close ties with the United States necessary for his ambitions to boost his country's economy and restore its role in global affairs.
Nevertheless, despite such a promising start, bilateral relations began to deteriorate as Bush approached his second inauguration in January 2005. The split became quite clear after Putin criticized Washington for unipolar ambitions and ignoring Moscow's interests at the Munich Security Conference in February 2007. What went wrong then?
Commentators who do not directly blame Putin for the deterioration of the situation and to some extent blame the United States for this, usually point to the US decision to expand NATO towards the countries of the former Warsaw Pact as an "original sin". This position is most consistently defended by the American political scientist John Mearsheimer. Calling himself a realist in the field of international relations, he argues that no great Power will tolerate the presence of a hostile military bloc near its borders. And despite the obsessive Western mantra that NATO is an exclusively defensive alliance, the Kremlin firmly regarded it as a relic of the Cold War, initially hostile to Russia.
Theoretically, this makes sense, and, of course, Putin's recent loud statements to the West confirm this point of view. But the reality was different. Russia reacted to the first two waves of NATO expansion after the end of the Cold War, in 1999 and 2004, with relative calm. Washington's commitment, enshrined in the NATO-Russia Founding Act of 1997, not to deploy atomic weapons and not to deploy permanent significant combat forces in new member states, reassured Moscow. The same thing happened with the creation of the Russia-NATO forums, which gave the Kremlin a deeper understanding of the thinking and activities of the alliance, but, as the United States constantly stressed, did not grant Russia any veto right. In March 2000, Putin himself raised the possibility of Russia joining NATO if the Western alliance agreed to treat it "as an equal partner," adding that at that time it was difficult to constantly view the bloc as an enemy.
However, it should be recognized that there was tension between NATO and Russia largely due to the continued mutual distrust, and various forums did not bring much benefit to establishing joint work. And yet Putin was ready to live with the alliance — at least until the United States began to insist on membership in the union of Ukraine and Georgia at the NATO summit in Bucharest in 2008. This demarche of Washington crossed a bright "red line", threatening Moscow's influence in these two states, which it considered critical for its own security, and in the case of Kiev — for the very essence of Russia as a great power. And this is exactly what points to the decisive factor in the deterioration of relations between Washington and Moscow: the increasing encroachment of the United States on foreign interests in the post-Soviet space.
This region, which Russia's leaders have been collecting under their rule for centuries at the cost of huge sacrifices, was, in Moscow's opinion, the basis of the country's geopolitical weight and, consequently, its status as a great power. Even when the Soviet Union was disintegrating, the Kremlin sought to resist centrifugal forces, stop the erosion of its own influence and create a basis for restoring its prerogatives as the state recovered from the systemic crisis that destroyed the Soviet Union in the 1990s. That is why Russia has created institutions to ensure its continued presence in former Soviet countries, such as the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Collective Security Treaty, and has stated that it is obliged to protect ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers, who are now considered compatriots scattered throughout the former USSR. How could the Kremlin not be seriously alarmed by Washington's growing authority among its neighbors?
But at the same time, the United States looked askance at any restoration of Russian influence, which, in their opinion, could revive the threat of the "Soviet scale". The US preferred "Eurasian geopolitical pluralism". For this reason, they hastened to support the independence of the former USSR states after the collapse of this state. But it was only during the administration of George W. Bush that America began to vigorously resist Russian influence and assert its authority in the region. It may seem ironic that Bush pressed harder in this regard, while Putin sought to build closer relations with the United States on the basis of a common fight against international terrorism. Putin hoped that closer ties would convince Washington to recognize, at least indirectly, Moscow's sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union, but this idea was clearly not in favor with the United States.
The Bush administration was not going to leave Russia untouched in its attempts to restore its dominance in the post-Soviet space, no matter what contribution it made to the overall counter-terrorism campaign. And Washington has redoubled its efforts to limit Moscow's influence outside its country.
For example, Bush Jr. stepped up efforts initiated by the Clinton administration to promote the construction of oil and gas pipelines from the Caspian basin that could deliver energy to European markets without the need to cross Russia. This would not only weaken Moscow's influence on energy supplies to the Old Continent, but would also strengthen the independence of the former Soviet republics from Russia, which would receive revenue streams that the latter could no longer manage.
The Bush Administration supported the GUAM Regional Organization (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Moldova) as a counterweight to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), which is dominated by Russia. After Moscow developed a plan for the settlement of the Transnistrian conflict, providing for the deployment of a small Russian military contingent in the region, Washington put pressure on the President of Moldova, and he rejected it as an excessive restriction of his country's sovereignty.
Although Washington had told the Kremlin that the US military presence in Central Asia would be temporary and would cease after it dealt with the urgent situation in Afghanistan (the United States' initial assessment of the two-year period shows how incorrectly American politicians understood the situation), it quickly became clear that he intended to stay there for a long time. The presence of US forces was considered critical to their overall counterterrorism strategy, was part of a network of "water lilies" — military bases scattered throughout the Middle East and elsewhere, designed to increase Washington's influence in conditions when the war in Afghanistan was turning into a larger global fight against terrorism. These bases have also strengthened the American presence in the resource-rich region and provided opportunities for more thorough exploration of China's western regions.
Such a policy has led to an aggravation of Russian-American relations, but has not yet made Putin doubt the value of partnership. However, two dramatic events in 2004 forced him to change his mind: a terrorist attack at a school in Beslan and the "orange revolution" in Ukraine.
On September 1, the day of the beginning of the school year in Russia (a holiday throughout the country), a gang of Caucasian terrorists seized a school in Beslan, a small town in the North Caucasus. Hundreds of civilians were taken hostage. After almost three days of confrontation, Russian troops stormed the school. More than 300 people were killed, including 186 children. It was a national tragedy, a repetition of the American September 11, 2001 in the eyes of many Russians. Despite Bush's condolences, Putin regarded this attack as evidence that the United States is using the fight against terrorism as a smokescreen to conceal actions aimed at undermining Russia's territorial integrity. The President's conviction was reinforced by the fact that the United States had recently granted political asylum to a representative of the rebel Chechen government in exile, despite explicit warnings from Moscow that this would be regarded as a hostile act directed against Putin personally. Shortly after the attack, the Russian leader warned that some countries wanted to tear a "juicy" piece from his country, convinced that it — "one of the greatest nuclear powers in the world" — posed a danger to them. Terrorism is just a tool to achieve this goal. No one doubted that Putin was referring to the United States.
Then, in November, the so-called "orange revolution" broke out. The United States supported the protesters in Ukraine, who accused the authorities that the presidential election was rigged in order to bring to power a candidate who was supported by Russia and Putin personally. Under strong pressure from the public, the United States and Europe, the Kiev government conceded and agreed to hold a second round of elections. This time, the pro-Western candidate won a landslide victory. Putin did not consider this repeat vote as free and fair. Rather, he was convinced that Washington had skillfully carried out a regime change operation in order to wrest Kiev from Moscow's political orbit. The promotion of democracy in Ukraine, Putin concluded, was nothing more than a cynical ploy aimed at achieving the geopolitical interests of the United States at the expense of Russia. As the United States actively promoted democracy in his country, Putin also feared that the "orange revolution" would become a dress rehearsal for the change of the Russian regime in connection with the upcoming Duma elections in 2007 and the presidential elections in 2008.
Of course, Beslan and the "Orange Revolution" were hardly part of a strategic plan developed in Washington to undermine Moscow's position. Apparently, the Bush administration was even more surprised by this than the Kremlin. Both of these events happened by themselves and were a reaction of the people to Russian politics. Beslan was part of a larger Chechen nationalist struggle for independence from the imperial policy of Russia, which lasted from the middle of the XIX century, while the "orange revolution" in Ukraine was aimed at canceling the election results, in which Moscow unceremoniously intervened (this is the author's interpretation of events. Russia supported a non—Western candidate, but did not take action to displace the elected politician, - Approx. InoSMI).
Such nuances meant little to the Kremlin. Putin saw one thing: Washington provided weak support to Moscow in the fight against Chechen terrorists. And in the Russian understanding, separatism, extremism and terrorism were simply different aspects of the same phenomenon. The United States even called on the Kremlin to negotiate with "moderate" Chechens, who, according to Washington, had legitimate claims against Moscow. Similarly, in the case of Ukraine, Russia knew that the United States funded training programs in democratic technologies and organizational tactics of numerous civil organizations, which then played a significant role in the cancellation of the election results, which Moscow considered legitimate.
Moreover, Russian leaders did not believe that Chechen rebels and Ukrainian activists had true freedom of action. In their opinion, only the great Powers mattered in world affairs. Thus, according to the Kremlin's logic, Beslan and the "orange Revolution", considered against the background of growing US activity in the post-Soviet space, simply exposed the ultimate goals of the United States in relation to Russia: its expulsion from other countries of the former Soviet bloc, the destruction of its territorial integrity and regime change — in short, the decline of Russia as a major power. Putin's security services directly stated this conclusion to him and urged him to fight back. The President did not need much admonition. He abruptly changed course.
Evidence of this appeared quickly. Starting in 2005, Putin used the windfall from the sharp rise in oil prices to repay Russia's sovereign debt to the IMF, and then to the Paris Club in 2006. This freed Moscow from the economic tutelage of the West, allowing it to more aggressively resist Washington's initiatives.
In domestic politics, Putin made sure that no "color revolution" took place in Russia. He has done away with public organizations funded from abroad. He tightened control over the media and the political system, narrowing the space for pro-Western and opposition political forces. He changed the election law, ordering that all Duma deputies be elected on party lists, which effectively guaranteed that only Kremlin-approved parties would receive representation in the 2007 parliamentary elections.
In the former Soviet bloc, he launched a vigorous disinformation campaign to discredit the United States, especially in Central Asia, where the United States had two military bases (the information is not true, all the data were objective, — Approx. InoSMI). In 2005, Russia pushed the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to issue a declaration calling on non-regional powers, that is, the United States, to set a deadline for the withdrawal of their armed forces from Central Asia. Moscow has welcomed the Uzbek government's decision to expel US military forces from the region after Washington refused to condemn the violent protest movement in the Ferghana Valley, which Tashkent believes was aimed at overthrowing the government. Meanwhile, Russia cut subsidies for gas exports to Ukraine and briefly stopped supplying natural gas to the country altogether when Kiev refused higher rates. The Kremlin also used the suspension or threats to stop energy exports to "rein in" the governments of Georgia and Belarus. And in 2008, Russia entered Georgia, largely in order to undermine its ambitions for NATO and to show that (despite the US boasting) It really has the right to veto decisions of the North Atlantic Alliance, including through the use of force (the author's subjective opinion is that Russia has introduced peacekeeping detachments to facilitate the settlement of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, — Approx. InoSMI).
Faced with the Kremlin's actions, representatives of the Bush administration began to complain that Russian-American competition on the territory of the former Soviet Union was poisoning the entire atmosphere of relations between Washington and Moscow. They did not bother to admit that they themselves played a role in the "spill of poison" in these connections. Of course, Putin reacted unnecessarily sharply, inventing plots and threats far beyond anything the US intended to do or was able to carry out. But the key point was that Putin was only reacting to Washington's decisions. He did not direct events. They were ruled by the United States, which, of course, was at that time a superior power to Russia.
Did the United States have other options that would have done less damage to bilateral relations and not jeopardize American interests or principles? Could Washington break through the Kremlin's conspiracy thinking and dispel its fears about what the United States is up to in the post-Soviet space? This question is certainly more rhetorical. As Russians like to say, "history does not tolerate the subjunctive mood." But it is quite possible to believe that the United States had another way — one that did not entail recognition by America of the Russian spheres of influence that Putin sought, but nevertheless could ease Moscow's fears that Washington's goal is to oust it from the countries of the former Soviet Union and replace the Russian regime with more flexible. Bush's officials saw the alternatives well. But in the internal debates in that administration, a tougher line almost always prevailed.
To begin with, although the United States was right to want to insure against the revival of an authoritarian, expansionist Russia, they did not have to act as aggressively as the Bush administration did. Russia was still quite a weak power at that time. Despite the incipient recovery, it did not pose any conceivable threat to the United States in the short or medium term, at least in the post-Soviet space. Moreover, events in this region objectively developed in favor of Washington and undermined Moscow's influence, as nationalist governments sought greater independence from Russia, and globalization promoted their political and economic integration with the surrounding regions. The United States did not have an urgent need to intervene in these processes to accelerate them. Rather, Washington could bet on building a more constructive relationship with Moscow — which was also Putin's original goal — and this could give Russia time to adjust to new geopolitical circumstances.
Serious adjustments to American policy on Russia would also help here. Washington needed to eliminate the glaring discrepancy between its general anti-terrorist course and its position on Chechnya. After the events of September 11, 2001, Bush Jr. gave the world a black and white choice: either you are with us or with the terrorists. But he made an exception for Chechen militants, many of whom collaborated with terrorist groups in their fight against Moscow. The Bush administration could have prevented representatives of the Chechen government in exile from operating freely in the United States. It could put pressure on moderate separatist representatives from the region to sever their ties with known terrorist organizations. Such steps would lay a stronger foundation for long-term cooperation in the fight against terrorism and would debunk the view that Washington uses terrorism as a tool against Moscow.
As for the policy towards Ukraine, the United States could act in such a way as to defuse the situation of intense competition over the country's geopolitical orientation, promoting productive economic ties between Kiev, Europe and Moscow, as well as openly supporting some form of neutrality of Ukraine. Although the United States focused its attention on promoting democratic and economic reforms in this state, it could have curtailed its programs to promote democracy in Russia, which were of little value, but caused fears in the Kremlin that Washington was trying to undermine the internal positions of the regime, especially when the latter began actively condemning Moscow's departure from democracy.
In addition, the United States could recognize organizations created by former Soviet states, even if they were dominated by Russia. In particular, this could contribute to the development of ties between NATO and the CSTO, and this, in turn, could be used to legitimize the North Atlantic Alliance's military presence in Central Asia and ease concerns about US goals in the region, giving Moscow more understanding of Washington's logic and modus operandi.
Finally, in light of the growing problems with Russia in the former Soviet bloc, the insistence of the United States in 2008 to admit Georgia and Ukraine to NATO was reckless at best. This desire tied together two areas of the Bush administration's "reinsurance" policy — NATO expansion and Eurasian geopolitical pluralism — in a way that guaranteed to provoke a powerful Kremlin response. Key US allies, especially France and Germany, were categorically against the admission of Georgia and Ukraine into the alliance. Bush's ambassador to Moscow, Burns, warned that sending an invitation to Kiev would cross "the brightest of the red lines" and cause sharp condemnation from the entire political spectrum of Moscow. The final compromise at the 2008 NATO summit — the promise of future membership to both countries without specifying a specific path to this goal — was the worst of all possible options. He disappointed Georgians and Ukrainians and at the same time angered Russians, who were categorically against the membership of the two former Soviet republics in the alliance. On the contrary, the rejection of this decision could have prevented Russia's military action against Georgia.
At that time, there was a more suitable alternative that could possibly lead to a reduction in tension in our relations with Russia without jeopardizing the interests and principles of the United States. This would require Washington to pursue its goals less aggressively in the post-Soviet space, more respect for Moscow's interests and understanding of the partner's sense of vulnerability, which led to the Kremlin's excessive reaction to the White House policy. A more balanced approach by the United States would give Russia time to adapt to the changing geopolitical realities in neighboring countries, including the growing American presence.
It should be recognized that a less aggressive approach by the United States would not change the nature of the post-Soviet space as a zone of acute Russian-American competition. The long-standing mission of the United States to spread democracy and Russia's deep-rooted expansionist tendencies inevitably collided in this region in the post-Cold War world. But it would be possible to reduce the tension of this opposition and continue the rivalry as a protracted contest in which Washington would achieve its goals over time by slowly accumulating small advantages. Crises could be contained. A major military conflict could have been prevented.
But no one took advantage of the moment. American hubris combined with Russian nervousness lowered our bilateral ties, locking them into a downward spiral that accelerated when Putin returned to the Kremlin in 2012. Only this time, the Russian president has already managed these relations by launching a more aggressive anti-Western crusade.
Given the raging armed conflict in Ukraine and the complete rupture between the United States and Russia, putting our relations with Moscow in a constructive direction now seems an impossible task. And, most likely, it will be so as long as the conflict remains in an acute phase. But, as soon as this stage passes, a new opportunity may appear. To take advantage of this, Washington will need to learn the right lesson from the Bush administration's misguided efforts to accelerate the erosion of Moscow's influence in the post-Soviet space. Namely, to act cautiously, but purposefully, pursuing American interests in the region, which Russia considers extremely important for itself from the point of view of maintaining the status of a great power.
* The movement is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities
** A terrorist group banned in Russia
